^earning  anb  ^abor. 

, LIBRARY 


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University  of  Illinois. 

CLASS.  BOOK.  VOLUME. 

L„l,'=i V. 


Accession  No. 


M32 


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|nl£ntalt0nal  Stxm 

EDITED  BY 

WILLIAM  T.  HARKIS,  Ph.  D.,  LL.  D. 


Volume  XXXV, 


INTERNATIONAL  EDUCATION  SERIES. 

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INTERNATIONAL  EDUCATION  SERIES 


THE 

INTELLECTUAL  AND  MORAL  DEVELOPMENT 
OF  THE  CHILD 


PART  I 

CONTAINING  THE  CHAPTERS  ON  PERCEPTION,  E5IOTION, 

MEMORY,  IMAGINATION,  AND  CONSaOUSNESS  • 


BY 

GABRIEL  COMPAYRE 

BECTEUE  OP  THE  ACADEMY  OP  POITIERS 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  FRENCH 

By  MARY  E.  WILSON 

B.  L.  SMITH  COLLEGE 

MEMBER  OP  THE  GRADUATE  SEMINARY  IN  CHILD  STUDY, 
UNIVERSITY  OP  CALIFORNIA 


NEW  YORK 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 
1900 


Copyright,  1896, 

By  D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 


Electrotyped  and  Printed 
AT  THE  Appleton  Press,  U.  S.  A. 


V ^ X‘t  liettiurg*  ' ^ ^ 


EDITOE’S  PEEFACE. 


I 

iP 

o 

O 

Ip 


The  present  volume  contains  the  first  half  of 
the  translation  of  the  work  of  Professor  Gabriel 
Compayrd,  entitled  L"E volution  Intellectuelle  et 
Morale  de  hEnfant/"  The  object  of  the  work  is 
to  bring  together  in  a systematic  pedagogical 
form  what  is  known  regarding  the  development 
of  infant  children  so  far  as  the  facts  have  any 
bearing  upon  early  education. 

As  a field  of  investigation  and  original  re- 
search, physiological  psychology,  anthropology, 
or  the  study  of  man  as  an  object  of  natural  his- 
tory, and,  quite  recently,  the  specialization  of  in- 
quiry, limiting  it  to  the  still  narrower  field  which 
includes  the  child  in  his  stages  of  infancy  and 
boyhood  or  girlhood,  have  attracted  an  increas- 
ing number  of  students. 

A few  years  ago  the  department  of  folklore 
began  to  be  studied  as  one  of  the  minute  subdi- 
visions of  anthropology.  This  led  to  an  investi- 
gation of  children's  games,  and  much  light  was 
thrown  upon  the  mode  in  which  the  childish 
mind  mimics  for  itself  the  manners  and  cere- 
monies as  well  as  the  serious  occupations  of  the 
grown-up  people  about  it.  It  is  even  found  that 

V 

V ^ 4' 


VI 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CHILD. 


these  games  in  some  cases  (for  instance,  in  the 
counting-out  rhymes)  point  back  to  the  dreadful 
rites  of  human  sacrifice,  the  slaughtering  of  pris- 
oners by  the  Druids  and  others  who  offered  them 
to  their  gods.  The  selection  of  these  victims  de- 
voted to  sacrifice  by  counting-out  rhymes  bor- 
rowed from  the  poems  of  The  Edda  * is  long 
since  faded  out  of  history,  but  there  is  a refiection 
of  it  come  down  to  us  in  the  plays  of  the  children. 
Perhaps,  too,  all  of  these  personal  experiences  of 
the  race  are  impressed  upon  the  brain  and  nerve 
cells,  and  a sort  of  physiological  memory  still 
exists  in  each  person,  and  on  occasions  arouses 
an  instinct  or  dread  or  some  form  of  natural  preju- 
dice in  the  presence  of  some  thing  or  event. 

The  present  widespread  study  in  this  country 
of  the  child  in  school  and  in  the  family  is  due, 
more  than  to  any  one  else,  to  the  enthusiastic 
efforts  of  Dr.  G.  Stanley  Hall.  The  study  has  be- 
come so  general  and  is  so  wisely  managed  at 
various  centres,  especially  the  pedagogical  chairs 
in  universities,  that  new  harvests  of  observations 
are  reaped  annually  or  semiannually.  I mention 
these  facts  in  order  to  explain  that  a summary  of 
what  is  discovered  to-day  may  not  do  justice  to 


* The  reader  will  think  of  the  list  of  the  dwarfs  in  the  Voluspa, 
commencing  with  the  eleventh  strophe,  and  there  will  come  be- 
fore his  mind  little- children  standing  around  the  solemn  cere- 
mony that  was  to  determine  the  fate  of  the  prisoners,  and  he  will 
fancy  how  these  children,  going  away  from  the  ceremony,  would 
mimic  its  counting  out,  converting  the  solemn  ceremonial  into 
some  game  of  tag,  the  tag  signifying  symbolically  the  blow  by 
which  the  enemy  is  killed  or  the  prisoner  captured. 


EDITOR’S  PREFACE. 


Vll 


what  will  have  been  discovered  five  years  hence. 
This  is  especially  true  in  regard  to  pathological 
facts — that  is  to  say,  facts  which  relate  to  ab- 
normal development  and  diseases.  As  regards 
the  normal  development  of  the  child  and  his  edu- 
cation, it  must  be  admitted  on  all  hands  that  the 
results  of  the  new  studies  do  not  change  very 
much  the  theories  already  a long  time  in  exist- 
ence. 

The  theory  of  education  rests  on  two  pillars. 
One  is  the  study  of  the  ideals  of  civilization  and 
the  demands  of  the  institutions  in  which  the 
future  man  or  woman  is  to  live  his  or  her  life ; 
the  other  is  the  study  of  the  child  in  order  to  dis- 
cover in  him  what  rudimentary  tendencies  there 
are,  favourable  or  unfavourable  to  culture,  and 
to  ascertain  the  best  methods  of  encouraging  the 
right  tendencies  and  suppressing  the  wrong  ones. 

It  naturally  happens  that  some  of  the  most 
enthusiastic  investigators  would  persuade  them- 
selves that  child  study  is  all  that  is  necessary  to 
furnish  full  data  for  the  founding  of  a complete 
theory  of  education.  Such  persons  borrow  from 
other  investigators — or  oftener  from  the  cur- 
rent practice  about  them — their  opinions  regard- 
ing the  branches  of  study,  their  co-ordination  or 
subordination,  and  they  borrow,  moreover,  from 
the  teachers  who  have  taught  the  traditional 
branches  in  school  for  the  most  part  the  methods 
which  have  been  discovered  to  teach  effectively 
these  branches.  A little  consideration  will  lead 
one  of  them  to  the  conviction  that  the  course  of 
study,  the  needs  of  civilization,  and  the  art  of 


viii  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CHILD. 

teaching  should  require  new  investigations  made 
with  the  same  thoroughness  and  persistence  that 
now  characterize  the  exploration  of  the  field  of 
child-study. 

It  is  a gross  error  to  suppose  that  an  inspec- 
tion of  the  childish  mind  alone  will  give  one  all 
the  data  needed  to  fix  the  course  of  study  and  the 
methods  of  instruction.  It  gives  only  one  factor, 
only  one  of  the  essential  data.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  would  be  quite  as  absurd  to  suppose  that 
the  determining  of  the  other  datum — namely,  the 
contents  of  civilization  and  the  methods  of  edu- 
cating the  child  into  the  future  citizen — would 
suffice  without  the  datum  derived  from  child- 
study.  Without  special  child-study  educational 
writers  have  depended  on  the  stock  of  general 
experience.  It  is  of  course  true  enough  that 
human  experience  contains  very  much  knowl- 
edge regarding  children,  but  scientific  research  is 
the  only  thing  that  will  widen  this  knowledge 
and  make  it  precise.  I have  already  said,  in  an- 
other place:*  ^^The  characteristics  of  accuracy 
and  precision  which  make  science  exact  are  de- 
rived from  quantity.  Fix  the  order  of  succession, 
the  date,  the  duration,  the  locality,  the  environ- 
ment, the  extent  of  the  sphere  of  influence,  the 
number  of  manifestations,  and  the  number  of 
cases  of  intermittence,  and  one  has  an  exact 
knowledge  of  a phenomenon.  When  stated  in 
quantitative  terms  each  one’s  experience  is  useful 
to  other  observers.  It  is  easy  to  verify  it  or  to 


* Vol.  vii  of  this  series,  p.  vi. 


EDITOR’S  PREFACE. 


IX 


add  an  increment.  By  quantification  science 
grows  and  grows  continually  without  retrograde 
movements.^^ 

In  America  Prof.  Compayrd  is  already  one  of 
the  best-known  writers  on  the  subject  of  educa- 
tion through  the  translations  of  his  excellent  His- 
tory of  Pedagogy,*  and  his  works  on  educational 
psychology  and  methods  of  instruction. 

The  remaining  chapters  of  this  work  (from  X 
to  XVI)  will  follow  in  a second  volume.  The 
subjects  of  these  chapters  are:  X,  Judgment  and 
Reasoning;  XI,  Learning  to  Talk;  XII,  Volun- 
tary Activity — Walking  and  Play;  XIII,  Devel- 
opment of  the  Moral  Sense;  XIV,  Weak  and 
Strong  Points  of  Character ; XV,  Morbid  Tend- 
encies; XVI,  The  Sense  of  Selfhood  and  Per- 
sonality. 

Miss  Wilson,  the  translator,  joins  the  editor 
in  acknowledging  the  valuable  assistance  given 
by  Prof.  Elmer  E.  Brown  in  reading  the  manu- 
script and  making  suggestions  leading  to  a more 
faithful  rendering  of  the  text  of  the  author. 

W.  T.  Harris. 

Washington,  D.  C.,  June  20, 1896, 


* Published  by  Messrs.  D.  C.  Heath  & Co. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

Introduction 1 

I. — The  newborn  child  ....  o . 28 

II. — Movements  the  first  forms  of  activity  . , 61 

III.  — Development  of  sight ,96 

IV.  — Hearing,  taste,  smell,  and  touch  . . . 136 

V. — The  first  emotions  and  their  expression.  , 165 

VI. — Memory  before  and  after  the  acquisition  of  , 

LANGUAGE 209 

VII. — The  different  forms  of  imagination  . . . 239 

VIII. — Consciousness.  — Attention.  — Association  of 

IDEAS  . . . 265 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  AND  MORAL 
DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CHILD, 


INTRODUCTION. 

The  child  has  always  been  loved,  caressed, 
and  flattered  by  mothers;  poets  have  sung  his 
praises,  and  have  extolled  the  grace  of  his  smile  : 

II  est  si  beau,  I’enfant,  avec  son  doux  sourire, 

Sa  douce  bonne  foi,  sa  voix  qui  veut  tout  dire, 

Ses  pleurs  vite  apaises  ! 

Painters  have  depicted  with  great  compla- 
cency his  little  pink,  well-rounded  body,  giving 
him,  almost  to  deify  him,  the  wings  of  love.  In 
every  age,  too,  the  child  has  been  cared  for, 
trained,  instructed,  watched  over  by  hygienists, 
scolded  and  lectured  by  pedagogues.  But  with 
all  this  care  and  vigilance,  with  all  this  worship 
of  which  he  has  been  the  object,  people  seem  to 
have  forgotten  until  now  to  study  him,  to  ob- 
serve him  in  himself,  in  the  humble  beginnings 
of  his  intellectual  and  moral  life,  and  psycholo- 
gists even  have  hardly  concerned  themselves 
with  him.  People  have  tried  only  to  load  him 
down  with  lessons,  never  thinking  that  in  him 

1 


2 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CHILD. 


lay  the  power,  by  virtue  of  his  unvaried  sim- 
plicity, of  giving  us  at  least  our  first  lesson  in 
psychology. 

But  things  have  changed  now.  In  Germany, 
in  England,  in  France,  numerous  works  have 
brought  ^Ghe  psychology  of  the  child  into 
vogue.  Fathers  and  mothers,  especially  young 
philosophers,  have  begun  with  laudable  earnest- 
ness to  keep  a journal  of  the  actions  and  move- 
ments of  their  children.  The  observations  are 
multiplying  on  every  side.  Among  all  the  new 
fields  of  investigation  which  modern  science  has 
opened,  there  is  none  more  inviting,^^  says  James 
Sully,  than  that  of  child  study. * We  shall  be 
pardoned  for  having  yielded  to  this  charm,  and 
for  trying,  by  publishing  our  thoughts  and  our 
personal  experiences,  to  contribute  our  part  to 
the  progress  of  a class  of  studies  whose  success 
is  henceforth  assured,  f 

How,  indeed,  can  one  help  taking  hold  of  such 
a subject  ? How  fail  to  comprehend  its  interest  ? 


* James  Sully,  Introduction'  to  the  English  translation  of 
Perez’s  book,  Les  trois  premieres  annees  de  I’enfant. 

f The  work  in  hand  dates  back  several  years.  In  1878-’79, 
when  on  the  faculty  of  letters  of  Toulouse,  I devoted  all  my 
public  lectures  to  the  study  of  childhood,  and  the  Revue  phi- 
losophique  for  May,  1880,  said : “ Our  co-worker,  G.  Compayre, 
is  preparing  a work  on  the  Psychology  of  the  Child  for  publi- 
cation.” Circumstances  caused  the  work  to  remain  in  embryo, 
and  the  rule  of  Horace,  the  “ nonnumque  prematur  in  annum,” 
was  forced  upon  me.  I do  not  regret  this,  since,  thanks  to  the 
delay  in  the  final  edition  of  my  book,  I have  been  able  to  profit 
by  numerous  and  interesting  works  which  have  appeared  on  this 
same  subject  during  the  last  ten  years. 


INTRODUCTION. 


3 


If  childhood  is  the  cradle  of  humanity,  the  study 
of  childhood  is  the  natural  and  necessary  intro- 
duction to  all  future  psychology.  More  than  one 
obscure  question  of  general  philosophy  may  be 
cleared  up,  or  at  least  simplified,  by  the  revela- 
tions with  which  the  history  of  the  first  years  of 
life  furnish  us.  It  is  there,  for  example,  that  we 
must  look  for  the  solution  of  those  commonplaces 
of  philosophical  controversy,  the  question  of  the 
origin  of  ideas,  and  that  of  the  origin  of  language. 

We  do  not  understand  childhood,^^  wrote  Rous- 
seau ; and  in  deploring  our  ignorance  on  this 
point  he  made  it  responsible  for  so  many  vain 
systems  of  education,  works  of  senseless  imagina- 
tion constructed  on  the  a priori  basis  of  religious 
dogmas  or  of  philosophical  hypotheses.  There  is 
no  doubt  but  that  we  must  attribute  to  the  same 
cause,  to  the  same  ignorance,  many  errors  spread 
abroad  by  the  systems  of  philosophy  on  the  na- 
ture of  man.  The  exaggerations  of  those  who 
declare  themselves  to  be  in  favour  of  the  theory 
of  absolutely  innate  ideas  and  sensations,  or  of 
those  who  refer  everything  to  experience,  can  not 
hold  their  ground  when  we  confront  them  with 
the  child.  A few  facts  borrowed  from  the  pro- 
gressive evolution,  from  the  spontaneous  devel- 
opment of  children's  faculties,  will  be  sufficient 
to  silence  the  idealist's  conception  of  a soul  com- 
pletely formed,  possessed  of  all  its  attributes  at 
the  outset,  as  well  as  the  theory  of  the  realist, 
which  presents  the  mind  as  inert,  passive,  de- 
prived of  all  activity  in  itself,  and  a slave  to  sen- 
satioru 


2 


4 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  THE  CHILD. 


It  is  this  fact  that  Reid  has  so  clearly  grasped. 
The  Scotch  psychologist  did  not  hesitate  to  draw 
a parallel  between  the  profit  to  be  derived  from 
child  study  and  the  results  of  the  systematic 
speculations  of  philosophers  ; he  even  placed 
child  study  in  advance  of  philosophical  specula- 
tions.* If  it  were  possible/"  he  said,  to  get  a 
clear  and  complete  record  of  all  that  goes  on  in 
the  mind  of  a child,  from  the  beginning  of  his 
life  and  of  his  sensations  to  the  moment  when 
he  uses  his  reason,  a record  from  which  we  might 
learn  how  our  infant  faculties  worked,  how  they 
produced  and  developed  all  the  ideas  and  all  the 
sensations  that  we  find  in  ourselves  when  we 
have  arrived  at  the  age  of  reflection,  this  would 
be  a treasure  in  natural  history  which  would 
probably  shed  more  light  on  the  faculties  of  man 
than  all  the  systems  of  philosophy  that  have 
been  written  on  this  subject  from  the  beginning 
of  the  world.""  t 

But  it  is  not  alone  a care  for  the  progress  of 


* Eeid,  Inquiry  into  the  Human  Mind,  Introduction.  To  be 
sure,  Reid  did  not  believe  in  the  possibility  of  these  researches, 
which,  he  said,  “ Nature  has  not  put  within  our  power.” 

f If  the  psychology  of  the  child  is  called  upon  to  render  real 
service  to  general  psychology,  we  must  not  forget  that,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  psychology  of  the  child  would  not  be  possible, 
except  in  the  light  of  general  psychology  and  of  the  revelations 
which  the  latter  owes  to  the  adult  consciousness.  “ The  idea  of 
motion,  of  variation,  of  evolution,”  said  Paul  Janet  recently, 
“ will  be  introduced  more  and  more  into  psychology,  either  from 
the  point  of  view  of  time,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  history 
of  societies,  or  from  the  point  of  view  of  abnormal  changes ; 
these  comparative  studies,  however,  do  not  exclude,  but  even 


INTRODUCTION. 


5 


philosophical  speculations  that  should  recom- 
mend and  bring  into  repute  what  might  be  called 
paidoscopy* *  There  are  other  practical  and  posi- 
tive results  to  be  hoped  for  from  the  study  of  the 
child.  I remember  hearing  Marion,  in  one  of  his 
lectures  at  the  Sorbonne,  on  the  psychology  of 
the  child,  lay  stress  upon  the  sesthetic  interest  of 
his  subject.  Children,'^'’ he  said,  ^^are  the  men 
of  to-morrow ; they  will  see  what  we  can  only 
predict,  what  we  can  not  even  predict ; they  will 
participate  as  witnesses,  as  actors,  in  events  which 
we  do  not  even  suspect.'’^  Hence  the  dramatic 
charm,  so  to  speak,  which  makes  the  actions  of 
the  child  so  poetical,  the  charm  produced  by  a 
drama  just  begun,  when  one  does  not  know  the 
ending.  But  what  is  still  more  interesting  and 
important  than  the  poetry  of  childhood  is  the 
help  which  a minute  analysis  of  the  child^s  fac- 
ulties brings  to  psychological  and  moral  studies  ; 
these  are  the  gains  and  benefits  of  the  educator 
and  of  the  moralist.  If  it  is  true  that  children 
carry  the  future  of  humanity  in  their  little  hands, 
it  is  no  less  true  that  in  developing  their  mental 
and  moral  faculties  more  perfectly  we  may  modi- 
fy this  future  and  improve  the  moral  destinies 
of  the  human  race.  But  how  are  the  principles 
and  rules  of  this  better  education  and  this  more 


demand  a unity,  a basis  of  comparison,  which  is  the  normal  and 
fully  developed  man.”  (Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  July,  1892.) 

* We  risk  this  barbarism,  in  imitation  of  Emile  Faguet,  who 
invented  neaniascopie  to  signify  the  investigation  undertaken 
by  so  many  of  our  contemporaries,  on  the  state  of  the  soul  of 
French  youth. 


6 THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  THE  CHILD. 

effective  moralization  to  be  established,  if  we 
have  not  tried  to  penetrate  the  secrets  of  the 
child^s  nature,  and  to  clear  up  the  mysteries  of 
the  evolution  of  the  soul  ? 

Listen  to  the  child  ! He  cries  out  with  all  his 
might  that  he  needs  help  and  support,  that  he  can 
do  nothing  by  himself  ; that,  like  the  animals,  he 
would  not  know  how  to  do  without  his  parents. 

While  herds,  meantime,  and  beasts  of  various  name 
Flourish  at  ease  ; no  rattles  they  require, 

No  broken  lullaby  of  dandling  nurse  . , . 

Earth  and  Nature  boon. 

To  each  according  every  latent  wish.* 

This  Nature  boon  provides  for  the  child,  too, 
but  only  on  the  condition  that  she  be  sought  and 
upheld.  This  book  will  show  on  every  page  the 
insufficiencies  of  a spontaneity  which,  though 
real,  is  nevertheless  unable  to  accomplish  its 
work  by  itself,  without  the  co-operation  of  edu- 
cators. And,  at  the  same  time  that  it  is  making 
us  understand  the  necessity  of  interfering  in  one 
way  or  another  in  the  development  of  Nature, 
the  psychology  of  the  child  shows  us  the  means 
for  directing  this  interference  with  precision 
and  with  efficacy.  Physicians  do  not  hesitate  to 
state  that,  in  order  to  ameliorate  the  race,  from 
a physical  point  of  view,  it  is  necessary  to  use 
the  teachings  of  embryogeny,  and  to  examine 
thoroughly  the  laws  of  the  anatomical  and  physi- 
ological evolution  of  the  human  body,  to  the  end 


* Lucretius,  Do  Natura  Rerum,  J.  M.  Good’s  translation, 
Book  V. 


INTRODUCTION. 


7 


that  they  may  deduce  from  them  the  prescription 
of  hygiene  adapted  to  the  case.  Practical  phi- 
losophers who  wish  to  form  and  direct  the  mind 
will  be  convinced  more  and  more  that  their  ef- 
forts would  be  vain  if  they  had  not  begun  to 
learn  at  the  child^s  cradle  in  what  paths  educa- 
tion should  be  led,  in  order  to  aid  Nature  while 
following  it,  to  govern  without  cramping  it,  and 
to  what  spontaneous  forces  they  must  give  free 
scope,  to  what  weaknesses  bring  aid. 

The  trouble  is,  that  the  construction  of  an 
infant  psychology  is  not  less  difficult  than  it  is 
necessary.  The  difficulties  of  research  of  this 
sort  are  so  great  that  people  even  deny  its  pos- 
sibility ; the  character  of  it  is  so  delicate  that 
they  question  its  legitimacy. 

We  might  name  a distinguished  philosopher 
of  our  own  time  who,  in  the  timid  sensitiveness 
of  his  religious  faith,  will  not  hear  infant  psy- 
chology spoken  of.  The  genesis  of  the  soul  is,  in 
his  eyes,  an  act  of  the  creative  power  which  it 
behooves  us  to  respect,  a mystery  of  Nature  which 
is  profaned  by  almost  sacrilegious  indiscretion 
when  we  pretend  to  tear  away  the  veil  that  covers 
it.  Is  it  necessary  to  say  that  this  kind  of  mod- 
esty seems  unintelligible  to  us,  that  it  is,  to  say 
the  least,  antiscientific,  and  that,  before  denying 
to  philosophers  the  study  of  the  beginnings  of  the 
intellectual  and  moral  life,  it  would  be  necessary 
to  have  first  refused  physicians  the  right  of  as- 
certaining the  laws  of  generation,  and  even  of 
practising  the  obstetric  art  ? 

The  objections  that  bear,  not  on  the  propriety 


8 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  THE  CHILD. 


of  our  studies,  but  on  the  difficulties  in  carrying 
them  out,  are  more  serious. 

Let  us  see,'’^  people  say  to  us,  what  means 
of  information  you  have  at  your  disposal.  The 
psychology  of  the  adult  rests  essentially  on  the 
consciousness  of  the  self  which  is  prolonged  in 
the  memory.  This  instrument  is  lacking  in  the 
psychology  of  the  child.  You  have  nothing  to 
expect  from  inner  observation,  from  personal  re- 
flection. You  pretend  to  know  the  child,  and  the 
child  does  not  know  himself  ! Nothing  remains 
in  your  memory  of  what  you  did,  or  thought,  or 
felt,  during  the  first  years  of  your  existence.  Of 
the  characters  which  daily  action  or  experience 
inscribes  on  the  consciousness  of  the  child,  as 
soon  as  he  has  a consciousness,  no  trace  remains ; 
a deep  oblivion  hides  them.  You  can  not  regain 
possession  of  your  childhood,  and  you  are  re- 
duced to  conjecture  from  without  what  takes 
place  within  the  consciousness  of  the  child  whom 
you  are  observing.  This  external  observation, 
the  only  possible,  you  will  easily  recognise,  has 
all  the  faults,  all  the  uncertainty  of  an  interpre- 
tation, of  a translation.  You  do  not  read  in  the 
soul  of  the  child,  except  through  its  material  cov- 
ering. His  motions,  his  gestures — later,  when  he 
can  speak,  his  words — are  only  signs  to  which 
you  attribute  by  analogy  with  the  phenomena  of 
your  own  consciousness  a meaning  which  per- 
haps is  not  always  exact.  You  are  obliged  to 
confess,  yourself,  that  the  signs  of  expression  of 
a child  are  often  disproportionate  to  the  real  in- 
tensity of  the  feeling  that  they  express,  that  he 


INTRODUCTION. 


9 


gesticulates  more  than  he  feels,  that  he  talks 
more  than  he  thinks,  that  in  his  apparently  most 
intelligent  discourse  there  is  sometimes  nothing 
hut  the  chattering  of  the  paroquet,  which  repeats 
words  without  understanding  them.  Admit,  then, 
that  your  methods  of  investigation  are  uncertain, 
that  the  greater  part  of  your  conclusions  are  hy- 
pothetical, that  they  leave  you  exposed  to  inex- 
actness and  to  error. 

Besides,  it  is  not  only  your  process  of  obser- 
vation that  will  bring  disappointment  to  your 
good  intentions.  Other  difficulties  spring  from 
the  very  nature  of  the  object  you  are  trying  to 
analyze.  At  first,  the  phenomena  that  you  study 
are  unconscious,  in  part,  if  not  in  whole ; in  order 
to  know  them,  it  would  be  necessary  to  rob  the 
invisible  vibrations  of  the  nerves  of  their  secret. 
They  are  performed  in  the  depths  of  an  organism 
which  your  glance  can  not  penetrate.  And  when 
they  have  become  conscious,  when  a ray  of  intel- 
ligence vague  and  undefined  lightens  them,  they 
are  none  the  less  difficult  to  grasp ; for  they 
change  and  are  modified  incessantly.  They  are 
the  most  variable,  the  most  fugitive  things  in  the 
world.* 

The  faculties  of  the  adult  having  been  devel- 
oped and  fixed  in  their  definite  forms  for  a long 
time,  are,  so  to  speak,  in  repose ; you  have  leisure 
in  which  to  consider  them  in  all  their  aspects. 

* “ Everything  is  so  fleeting,  so  vague  in  the  child,  that  the 
observer  who  would  try  to  fix  his  uncertain  features  would  soon 
be  overcome  as  by  vertigo.”  (Mine.  Necker  de  Saussure,  L’Edu- 
cation  progressive,  Book  II,  chap,  i.) 


10  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  THE  CHILD. 


But  in  the  case  of  the  child  one  phenomenon  has 
no  sooner  shown  itself  than  it  gives  place  to  an- 
other, which  not  only  differs  from  it,  but  which 
is  often  its  very  opposite ; what  was  unconscious 
yesterday  is  conscious  to-day ; in  a flash  of  time 
an  instinctive  action  has  become  a voluntary  one. 
The  child's  soul  shows  the  most  diverse  colours 
in  a few  moments.  Everything  in  it  is  change, 
perpetual  evolution.  How  could  you  build  any- 
thing solid  on  this  moving  foundation  ? How 
evolve  a fixed  and  durable  image  from  a sight 
that  is  renewed  at  every  instant  ? As  well  try  to 
photograph  the  flight  of  birds  or  the  march  of  an 
army!  You  can,  at  most,  by  your  successive 
observations,  gather  together  a series  of  instan- 
taneous views,  from  which  it  is  very  difficult  to 
deduce  fixed  laws  and  general  truths." 

We  do  not  conceal  from  ourselves  the  import 
and  force  of  these  objections ; but  they  are  not 
of  a nature  to  arrest  efforts  or  to  discourage  the 
hopes  of  the  psychologists  who  would  study  the 
child.  They  ought  to  make  them  cautious,  dis- 
trustful, eager  to  surround  themselves  with  every 
precaution  in  verifying,  in  registering  their  ob- 
servations unceasingly,  and  in  drawing  inferences 
with  prudence.  They  point  out  real  obstacles, 
but  these  obstacles,  however  difficult  they  may 
make  the  attainment  of  the  object  sought,  do  not 
make  it  impracticable. 

In  the  first  place,  it  would  be  wrong  to  sup- 
pose that  external  facts  directly  observed  in  the 
child  have  not  in  themselves  a psychological 
value.  The  life  of  the  mind  is  not  concentrated 


INTRODUCTION. 


11 


entirely  in  the  consciousness.  A psychic  act,  in 
its  complete  development,  contains  three  ele- 
ments : an  antecedent  in  the  nerves,  an  internal 
act  of  consciousness,  and  an  outward  movement. 
But  this  series  of  three  terms  is  not  always  com- 
plete ; with  the  exception  of  the  first  term,  which 
is  the  indispensable  condition,  it  is  either  the  sec- 
ond or  the  third  that  may  be  lacking.  In  the 
unconscious  phenomena  which  exist  in  minds  of 
all  ages,  but  which,  above  all,  the  obscure  begin- 
nings of  the  child's  life  present,  the  gap  results 
from  a lack  of  consciousness.  In  the  life  of  the 
adult,  when  the  habit  of  reflection  is  fixed,  when 
the  current  of  inner  thought  is  permanently  es- 
tablished, it  is  the  third  element,  the  outward 
manifestation,  which  is  most  often  wanting.  The 
phenomenon  ends  with  the  consciousness ; noth- 
ing reveals  it  to  the  outside  world.  But  the  child 
hardly  knows  these  inhibitions,  this  staying  of 
the  thought  and  feeling  turned  in  upon  them- 
selves. The  slightest  pulsations  of  his  mind,  so 
to  speak,  reflect  themselves  upon  his  physiog- 
nomy. His  expressive  and,  as  it  were,  trans- 
parent consciousness  flashes  forth,  at  first  in  ges- 
tures, later  in  his  babbling.  Hence  the  particular 
interest  which  the  observation  of  his  outward 
movements  offers,  the  sincere  expression  of  his 
mental  activity.  Besides,  these  motions  which 
we  can  follow  and  note  with  exactness — however 
slight  may  be  the  attention  we  give  them — are 
in  themselves  psychic  facts ; and  only  to  have 
described  and  analyzed  them,  without  going  back 
to  their  source,  would  be  psychology  in  itself. 


12  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CHILD. 

We  should  not  look  with  disdain,  then,  upon  this 
study  of  the  child  from  without,  even  if  it  should 
be  denied  all  introspective  import  as  to  the  inte- 
rior of  his  mind,  and  if  it  should  not  serve  as  an 
inductive  instrument  for  getting  at  the  hidden 
operations  of  his  consciousness. 

It  is  true  that  the  external  observation  of  the 
child^s  actions  could  not  in  any  case  acquaint  us 
with  the  nature  of  the  phenomena  of  the  nerves 
and  muscles,  on  which  depend  the  intellectual 
and  moral  phenomena.  But  if  that  were  a se- 
rious argument  against  the  possibility  of  the 
psychology  of  the  first  years,  the  same  argument 
would  hold  against  all  psychology.  Is  not  inter- 
nal observation,  the  instrument  of  adult  psychol- 
ogy, also  powerless  in  revealing  to  us  the  depths 
of  consciousness  ? And  yet  the  most  conscious, 
the  most  thoughtful  acts  of  the  mature  man,  car- 
ried on  in  the  full  light  of  the  inmost  reason, 
have  their  roots,  or  at  least  their* antecedents,  in 
the  foundations  of  the  nervous  organism  quite  as 
much  as  the  half-conscious  sensations  and  emo- 
tions of  the  newborn  child.  From  this  point  of 
view,  the  psychology  of  the  child  may  be  entered 
upon  with  no  greater  handicaps  than  the  psy- 
chology of  the  adult.  In  both  cases  it  is  to  an- 
atomy, to  physiology,  that  the  psychologist  must 
resort,  in  order  to  complete  his  information  of  the 
nature  of  the  facts  that  he  observes. 

There  remains,  it  is  true,  this  obvious  disad- 
vantage— namely,  that  the  child^s  consciousness, 
impenetrable  in  a sense,  like  all  consciousness,  is 
neither  distinct  enough  nor  rcfiective  enough  to 


INTRODUCTION. 


13 


study  itself  and  to  account  to  itself  for  its  acts. 
Induction  alone  permits  us  to  explore  this  invisi- 
ble world.  But  are  these  inductions,  then,  so  rash 
that  we  should  hesitate  to  make  use  of  them  ? We 
have  to  fear  neither  dissimulation  nor  disguises 
in  the  child.  Nothing  changes  the  perfect  trans- 
parency of  his  sincerity.  His  eyes  are  indeed  the 
mirror  of  his  soul.  He  is  all  unconstraint,  all 
trust;  he  would  not  know  how  to  have  secrets 
from  the  scrutinizing  gaze  of  his  observer. 

A pleasing  writer,  Anthoine,  has  called  atten- 
tion to  this  fact.  I have  heard  it  said  that  a 
psychology  of  the  child  has  not  been  framed. 
Why  ? Is  the  child  more  difficult  to  fathom  than 
the  man  ? If  I may  judge  from  my  own  recollec- 
tions, I should  say  ^ No."  As  a child  I lived  with 
a mother  and  sister  from  whom  I never  could 
hide  anything  ; they  read  me  as  they  would  read 
a book  opened  wide.  I should  have  tried  in  vain 
to  conceal  anything  from  them ; they  would  have 
discovered  my  little  tricks  and  ruses  very  quickly ; 
when  they  fixed  their  eyes  upon  mine  (oh ! that 
clear  gaze — after  so  many  years  have  passed  I 
see  it  and  feel  it  still),  I was  conquered  imme- 
diately. I gave  myself  up.  They  knew  me  better 
than  I knew  myself  ; how  many  times  have  they 
compelled  me  to  go  back  over  the  course  of  my 
inward  deliberation,  to  find,  beneath  the  pretexts 
with  which  I pretended  to  satisfy  others  and  my- 
self, the  true  motive  for  my  conduct,  the  one  that 
had  determined  it.""  * 

— ^ 

* M.  Anthoine,  A travers  nos  ecoles,  souvenirs  posthumes. 

^ Paris,  Hachette,  1887,  p.  16. 


14  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CHILD. 


Anthoine  continues  his  informal  account,  lay- 
ing stress,  and  rightly,  upon  the  power  of  pene- 
tration that  a mother’s  eye  acquires,  fixed  with  a 
sweet  determination  upon  one  she  loves.  The 
force  of  the  tenderness  creates  between  the  par- 
ents and  the  child  relations  so  close,  a moral  in- 
timacy so  deep,  that  the  faintest  heart  beats  of 
the  child  re-echo  in  the  ears  of  those  that  love 
him.  Paternal  and  maternal  love  carry  with 
them  a sort  of  divination.  How  easily  we  divine 
the  slightest  thoughts,  the  most  fieeting  sensa- 
tions of  these  little  creatures,  always  followed 
step  by  step  by  the  sympathy  of  the  mother. 
Mme.  de  Sevign^  said  to  her  daughter,  in  a burst 
of  tenderness,  I suffer  in  your  lungs.’’  A father 
and  a mother,  affectionate  and  attentive,  can  al- 
most say  to  their  child,  I feel  your  emotions ! 
I am  conscious  of  your  thought.” 

We  feel  that  the  best  psychologists  of  child- 
hood are  those  who  have  followed  carefully,  from 
hour  to  hour,  the  moral  development  of  their  own 
children ; but  we  do  not  mean  to  exclude  bache- 
lors from  taking  part  in  these  researches,  nor  to 
deny  them  success.  If  we  had  the  slightest  desire 
to  do  this  the  results  already  obtained  would  rise 
in  contradiction.  One  example  will  suffice,  that 
of  Bernard  Perez.  He  has  observed  only  the  chil- 
dren of  others,  but  has,  nevertheless,  written  some 
interesting  and  instructive  books  on  this  subject. 
The  child’s  consciousness  does  not  shield  itself 
from  the  observer,  whoever  he  may  be.  There  is 
no  necessity  for  violence  in  order  to  penetrate 
into  his  soul,  open  to  every  comer,  and  offering 


INTRODUCTION. 


15 


itself,  so  to  speak,  without  resistance,  to  all  indis- 
cretions. 

If  the  journals  kept  by  a mother  * or  a father, 
in  which  a careful  hand  registers  from  day  to  day 
the  smallest  incidents  of  the  child’s  existence,  are 
really  the  most  precious  sources  of  observation, 
all  information,  wherever  it  comes  from,  is  wel- 
come. Indeed,  there  is  no  subject  which,  by  the 
complexity  of  the  questions  which  it  raises,  de- 
mands more  imperiously  a variety  of  experiments, 
each  completing  and  controlling  the  others.  The 
psychology  of  the  child  is  a complicated  work, 
whose  success  can  not  be  attained  unless  many 
workers  take  hold  of  the  subject.  Individual 
observations,  however  minute  and  methodical 
they  may  be — for  instance,  those  of  Preyer,  on 
his  son  Axel  — apart  from  the  fact  that  they 
may  be  perverted  by  prejudices,  are  necessarily 
incomplete,  and  at  some  point  inexact,  because 
they  apply  to  only  a single  individual.  The  evo- 
lution of  the  child’s  faculties  is,  moreover,  too 
rapid  for  a single  observer  to  be  able  to  take  ac- 
count of  all  of  its  steps  at  one  observation.  How 
often,  in  observing  our  own  children,  we  have 
succeeded  in  establishing  only  the  impotence  of 
our  own  efforts  ! The  phenomenon  we  were  try- 
ing to  understand  had  disappeared  before  it  was 
possible  for  us  to  grasp  it.  A question  was  stated, 
and  we  thought  we  were  on  the  point  of  answer- 


* Mme.  Necker  de  Saiissure  recommended  them  fifty  years 
ago  : “ I strongly  urge  young  mothers,”  she  said,  ‘‘  to  keep  an 
accurate  record  of  the  development  of  their  children.” 


IG  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CHILD. 

ing  it ; but  time  had  followed  its  course,  the  stage 
of  the  development  corresponding  to  the  question 
to  be  solved  had  passed,  and  our  observations 
having  advanced  more  slowly  than  Nature,  the 
evolution,  whose  mystery  we  had  hoped  to  take 
by  surprise,  was  closed  before  our  solution  was 
found.  In  order  to  achieve  our  purpose,  it  would 
have  been  necessary  to  have  another  living  exam- 
ple at  hand,  laid  hold  of  at  the  point  where  our 
investigation  had  to  stop — where  the  first  subject 
failed  us.  But  our  library  did  not  contain  an- 
other volume,  and  we  were  compelled  to  apply 
elsewhere.  That  is  why  a constant  renewal  of 
the  same  observation  is  necessary  in  the  psychol- 
ogy of  the  child ; the  studies  begun  by  one  can 
not  be  finished  except  by  others,  and  the  suc- 
cessive shades  of  a perpetual  growth  can  not  be 
noted  in  their  details  nor  comprehended  in  their 
entirety  except  when  patiently  examined  in  a 
number  of  individuals. 

Can  the  observer  resort  to  experiment  in  his 
examination  of  the  child  ? The  successful  efforts 
in  this  direction  of  Preyer  and  Binet,  to  mention 
no  others,  permit  us  to  answer  in  the  affirmative. 
But  these  little  tests  to  which  the  child  is  sub- 
jected could  have  no  bearing  on  any  but  the  very 
limited  and  very  superficial  parts  of  human  de- 
velopment— for  instance,  the  perception  of  col- 
ours or  the  appreciation  of  distances.  They  could 
not  reach  the  inmost  and  essential  foundations 
of  the  mental  evolution.  The  only  truly  decisive 
experiment  would  be  to  isolate  a child,  to  separate 
him  from  all  social  environments,  to  let  him  grow 


INTRODUCTIOX. 


17 


by  himself,  without  help  of  any  sort,  as  Herodo- 
tus tells  us  a king  of  Egypt  had  conceived  of 
doing.  We  could  see  then  just  what  Nature 
might  do  when  thrown  on  her  own  resources,  and 
could  draw  the  line  sharply  between  the  influence 
of  education,  social  suggestions,  and  the  sponta- 
neous action  of  heredity  or  of  inborn  tendencies. 
But  who  would  allow  such  violence  to  the  natural 
order  of  things  to  be  committed  on  his  child  ! If 
child  study  should  undertake  to  carry  out  the 
work  along  this  line,  it  would  then  indeed  justify 
the  anger  of  those  who  consider  it  a profanation 
of  the  holy  works  of  Nature,  and  almost  a crime 
of  high  treason  against  childhood. 

Permissible  and  possible  experiment,  then, 
can  not  go  beyond  certain  limits,  which  are  con- 
trolled by  consideration  for  the  child,  a fear  of 
encroaching  on  the  rights  of  a nascent  person- 
ality. And  under  these  conditions  it  is  evident 
that  experiment  can  afford  us  but  a very  feeble 
increase  of  light.  It  must  be  noted,  moreover, 
that  even  when  carried  on  with  discretion  and 
propriety,  experiment  presents  a serious  incon- 
venience, in  that  it  modifies  the  subject  to  which 
it  is  applied  to  the  point  of  changing  and  even 
perverting  the  regular  course  of  Nature.  In  the 
case  of  a child  that  has  been  subjected  from  his 
birth  to  a continuous  system  of  experiments,  on 
the  visual  operations,  for  instance,  the  vision  will 
certainly  develop  more  rapidly  than  in  children 
upon  whom  no  experiments  have  been  performed. 
Preyer  confesses  this.  Having  found  that  his 
son's  eyes  followed  a bright  object  on  the  twenty- 


18  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  THE  CHILD. 

fourth  day,  when  usually  the  faculty  of  fixing  and 
of  removing  the  glance  did  not  appear  till  later, 
he  writes  : I had  made,  it  is  true,  almost  daily 

experiments  on  this  point  from  the  first  day,  and 
these  experiments  perhaps  hastened  in  Axel  the 
formation  of  the  mechanism  of  the  convergence 
of  the  eyes.""^ 

Certainly  the  best  experiments  are  those  which 
Nature  herself  has  instituted,  in  offering  us,  in 
the  diversity  of  temperaments  and  of  individual 
types,  different  forms,  some  rapid,  some  slow,  of 
the  same  evolution.  These  natural  experiments 
are  still  more  significant,  more  instructive,  when 
a gap,  a lesion  of  the  organism,  a constitutional 
weakness,  any  cause  whatever  of  disturbance,  as 
it  were,  maiming  the  human  soul,  impeding  the 
scope  of  the  faculties,  lets  us  see  the  consequences 
of  the  abortion  of  an  organ,  of  the  atrophy  of  a 
sense,  or  else,  by  arresting  the  development,  ren- 
ders a transient  stage  of  normal  evolution  perma- 
nent. We  shall  have  to  resort  to  the  psychology 
of  idiots  and  imbeciles,  and  to  that  of  maniacs,  for 
more  than  one  piece  of  useful  information.  De- 
cidedly abnormal  states  of  maturity  are  often 
but  the  exact  representation  of  one  of  the  periods 
of  transition,  one  of  the  fleeting  states  through 
which  the  child  passes  in  his  regular  growth. 
And,  in  the  same  way,  animals,  whose  history,  it 
has  been  said,  was  that  of  thought  before  man, 
and  which  are,  as  it  were,  Nature^s  first  outlines 
of  psychic  organization,  will  help  us,  by  compari- 
son, to  understand  some  of  the  child^s  actions. 
The  admirable  works  of  Romanes,  Animal  Intel- 


INTRODUCTION. 


19 


ligence  and  Mental  Evolution  in  Animals,  con- 
tain more  than  one  suggestive  consideration  by 
which  we  have  profited. 

With  these  manifold  sources  of  information 
we  should  not  despair  of  succeeding  some  day, 
after  numerous  repetitions  and  incessant  revi- 
sions, not  only  in  describing  exactly,  but  in  ex- 
plaining with  certainty,  the  evolution  of  the 
child’s  faculties.  Clever  essays,  and  even  works 
of  considerable  extent,  have  already  appeared. 
The  best  proof  that  the  subject  is  an  attractive 
one,  and  that  the  work  is  practicable,  is  that 
child  study  is  the  order  of  the  day ; that  physi- 
ologists and  psychologists  everywhere  have  un- 
dertaken it,  have  boldly  opened  the  way,  and 
have  approached,  if  not  reached,  the  goal.* 

It  would  hardly  be  fitting  for  us,  about  to  un- 
dertake a work  of  a similar  character,  to  point 
out  the  ways  in  which  the  efforts  of  those  who 
have  gone  before  us  have  failed,  efforts  that  have 


* The  most  important  works  on  this  subject  are  : A Memoir 
by  Thierry  Tiedemann,  translated  into  French  by  Michelin,  dat- 
ing from  1781 ; A Biographical  Sketch  of  an  Infant,  by  Darwin 
(Mind,  July,  1877) ; E.  Egger,  Observations  et  reflexions  sur  le 
developpement  de  rintelligence  et  du  langage  chez  les  enfants, 
Paris,  1878 ; Bernard  Perez,  Les  trois  premieres  annees  de  I’en- 
fant  (translated  into  English  by  James  Sully) ; Preyer,  Die  Seele 
des  Kindes  (translated  into  English  by  H.  W.  Brown,  and  pub- 
lished in  two  volumes.  The  Senses  and  the  Will,  and  Develop- 
ment of  the  Intellect) ; also.  Studies  on  the  Language  of  Chil- 
dren, published  by  Pollock,  in  Mind,  July,  1878 ; Taine’s  article 
on  L’Acquisition  du  langage,  in  the  Revue  philosophique  (vol.  i, 
No.  1),  and  the  Observations  of  Ferri,  in  the  Filosofla  delle 
scuole  italiane,  October,  1879  and  1880. 


20  the  development  of  the  child. 

rendered  our  own  comparatively  easy.  We  would 
ratlier  call  attention  to  their  merits  and  to  what 
they  have  accomplished.  Any  one  that  has  read 
the  biographical  sketch  in  which  Darwin  has 
summed  up  his  observations  on  his  son  Doddy 
will  realize  that  it  is  not  possible  to  condense 
into  a few  lines  a large  number  of  striking  and 
distinct  facts^  and  that  the  illustrious  English 
naturalist  could  have  written  the  history  of  the 
origin  of  the  soul  with  more  certainty  and  more 
confidence  than  that  of  the  origin  of  species. 
Egger,  in  interpreting  the  marks  of  family,  has 
shown  how  philological  knowledge  can  serve  to 
throw  light  on  the  study  of  the  progress  of  lan- 
guage, and  consequently  of  intelligence.  Taine, 
in  a few  pages,  too  brief,  but  very  rich  and  very 
full,  has  successfully  applied  the  method  de- 
scribed in  these  words  : Little  facts,  well  chosen, 

important,  significant,  fully  substantiated,  and 
minutely  noted — that  is  the  material  for  all  sci- 
ence to-day.*  We  bow  before  Preyer^s  book  as 
a monument  of  Germanic  patience,  the  richest 
collection  of  observations  that  we  possess  thus 
far.f  And  finally  Perez,  with  his  abundance  of 
anecdotes,  collecting  on  all  sides  everything  that 
concerns  the  life  of  children,  on  their  way  home 
from  school,  in  the  squares  where  nurses  take  the 
babies  for  airing,  even  in  the  newspapers,  has 
done  much  to  spread  abroad,  to  popularize  the 


* Taine,  LTntelligence,  preface. 

f Preyer  observed  his  son  for  three  years  every  day,  morn- 
ing, noon,  and  night.’’  (See  preface.) 


INTRODUCTION. 


21 


studies  to  which  he  has  devoted  himself  with 
persevering  and  passionate  ardour.^^ 

But  it  is  not  only  in  special  and,  so  to  speak, 
teclinical  works  that  we  must  look  for  material 
for  our  work.  Let  us  not  say  that  child  study  is 
an  entirely  new  thing.  The  elements,  some  ele- 
ments at  least,  have  existed  for  a long  time  in 
most  works  on  the  education  of  childhood,  nota- 
bly those  like  the  memorable  works  of  Locke  and 
Rousseau,*  that  have  sprung  from  a philosophic 
mind.  Every  educator  worthy  of  the  name  has 
been  compelled  by  the  needs  of  his  subject  to 
say  a few  words  at  least  on  the  nature  of  the 
child.  In  the  same  way  memoirs  and  autobiog- 
raphies are  useful  sources  of  information.  It 
must  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  in  this  connec- 
tion, first,  that  the  imagination  of  the  mature  ( 
man,  when  he  returns  in  thought  to  his  child- \ 
hood,  is  inclined  to  embellish,  to  transfigure  the  \ 
vague  remembrances  of  his  first  years  ; in  the  sec- 
ond place,  that  it  is  only  great  writers  who  have 
conceived  the  idea  of  recounting  the  beginnings 
of  their  lives,  the  exploits  of  their  young  days, 
and  that  consequently  in  accepting  their  accounts 
to  the  letter  we  should  probably  gain  an  exag- 
gerated idea  of  human  nature,  and  might  know 
in  the  end  only  the  psychology  of  prodigies. 

If  there  is  still  some  indecision  on  the  ques- 
tion of  methods  to  be  employed,  there  surely  can 

* What  is  the  Emile  of  Rousseau  if  not,  as  Maine  de  Biran 
has  already  remarked,  “ a sort  of  practical  psychology  in  all  that 
concerns  the  successive  order  of  the  development  of  our  intel- 
lectual and  moral  faculties  ” ? 


22  the  development  of  the  child. 


be  none  on  that  of  the  end  to  be  attained.  It 
is  not  a question  merely  of  drawing  children's 
moral  portraits,  like  those  we  find  in  Dui^anloup's 
L'Enfant,  portraits  of  the  poetic  or  humorous 
imagination,  such  as  Champfleury  and  Gustave 
Droz  have  sketched  in  their  books  on  the  child,  or 
Gavarni  in  his  legends  of  the  Enfants  Terribles. 
It  is  a question  of  drawing  a complete  picture  of 
human  nature  in  its  beginnings  and  of  its  evolu- 
tion. One  of  the  founders  of  infant  psychology, 
Tiedemann,  attached  great  importance  to  the 
question  of  dates  : the  child  followed  a light  with 
his  eyes  and  distinguished  objects  on  the  thirty- 
sixth  day;  he  smiled  or  cried  the  sixteenth  or 
seventeenth  week.  A psychological  chronology, 
certainly,  has  its  importance.  But  Tiedemann 
himself  recognises  that  it  is  impossible  to  estab- 
lish general  and  absolute  rules  on  such  a subject. 
There  is  such  a difference  between  one  child  and 
another  with  respect  to  precocity  * that  we  do 
not  learn  much  when  told  that  Doddy " made 
his  first  sound,  as  though  trying  to  speak,  on  the 
hundredth  day ; Axel  took  his  first  step  at  fifteen 
months.  By  multiplying  experiments  one  might, 
at  the  most,  arrive  at  an  average  which  would 
not  be  without  value,  f 


* Pollock  calls  attention  to  this  fact  in  his  paper  on  the 
progress  of  language  : “ Children  differ  so  much  in  forwardness 
that  the^time  of  particular  acquisition  seems  of  little  impor- 
tance as  compared  with  their  order.”  (Mind,  July,  1878.) 

f It  is  well  to  add,  moreover,  that  even  in  an  individual  ex- 
istence it  would  be  useless  to  try  to  establish  an  exact  date  for 
the  appearance  of  such  and  such  a faculty;  the  faculties,  far 


INTRODUCTION. 


23 


But  what  has  altogether  a different  interest 
from  the  question  of  dates,  is  to  determine  under 
what  circumstances  the  smile  or  the  tears  ap- 
peared, under  what  conditions  and  what  forms 
the  first  words  and  the  first  steps  were  produced  ; 
it  is,  in  a word,  to  determine  the  order  of  devel- 
opment of  psychological  acts,  an  order  whose 
course  can  be  quickened  or  slackened,  but  which 
in  itself,  in  the  succession  and  connection  of  the 
phenomena  which  compose  it,  is  always  the  same, 
and  remains  invariable  from  individual  to  indi- 
vidual.* * Evidently  there  are  laws  of  Nature 
which  govern  the  birth  of  faculties ; the  whole 
question  is  to  determine  these  laws. 

What  is  the  limit,  what  is  the  final  point  at 
which  our  research  shall  end  in  the  investigation 
upon  which  we  are  about  to  enter  ? We  do  not 
go  beyond  the  age  of  from  six  to  seven  years ; 
six  the  school  age,  seven  the  theologic  age,  the 
age  when  sins  count.'’^  Egger  carries  his  obser- 
vations to  the  tenth  year,  and  if  he  does  not  go 
farther  still  it  is  because,  as  he  says,  from  this 
time  on,  the  number  and  variety  of.  the  operations 
the  child  has  learned  constantly  restrain  the  free 
and  natural  play  of  the  faculties.'’^  This  reason. 


from  having  a sudden  birth,  always  require  a long,  slow  prepa- 
ration, 

* “ One  child  develops  rapidly,  another  slowly.  Very  consid- 
erable differences  are  found  even  in  children  having  the  same 
parents ; but  these  differences  concern  time  and  degree  more 
than  the  order  of  succession,  and  of  the  appearance  of  the  differ- 
ent phenomena  of  development,  for  the  essence  of  these  phe- 
nomena is  identical  in  all.”  (Preyer,  Preface.) 


24  the  development  of  the  child. 


were  it  the  only  one,  would  be  enough,  it  seems 
to  us,  to  cause  us  to  stop  much  earlier — at  the 
latest,  when  the  child  enters  school.  First  child- 
hood is  usually  considered  to  extend  to  the  sev- 
enth year.*  But  from  the  point  of  view  that  in- 
terests us,  childhood  proper,  the  formation  pe- 
riod, ends  a little  earlier.  It  is  the  first  three 
or  four  years  that  are  most  important  to  those 
studying  the  evolution  of  the  different  psycho- 
logical functions.  At  four  years  the  child  is, 
doubtless,  still  one  of  the  most  frail  of  creatures, 
very  ignorant,  and  void  of  reason.  Nevertheless, 
he  is  already  in  possession  of  all  of  the  essen- 
tial elements  of  his  future  activity.  He  has  ac- 
quired the  use  of  all  of  his  senses,  and  the  out- 
side world  is  opened  to  him.  Locomotion  and 
language  have  put  him  in  direct  communication 
with  material  things  as  well  as  with  his  fellows. 
The  different  forms  of  intelligence,  from  percep- 
tion to  reasoning,  have  made  a beginning  in  his 
consciousness  ; and  the  baby  not  yet  admitted  to 
school  already  knows  how  to  judge  and  reason  in 
his  own  way : with  inexact  premises,  and  often 
with  ridiculous  conclusions ; never  mind,  he  has 
a logic  of. his  own.  Neither  selfish  passions  nor 
warm-hearted  emotions  are  strangers  to  him,  and 
his  little  will  makes  itself  known,  be  it  only  in 
his  caprices,  the  battles  which  the  budding  inde- 
pendence of  his  character  wages  against  the  will 
of  grown  people.  All  sides  of  human  nature,  in 
a word,  are  represented  in  this  soul  of  four  years. 


* “ Infantia  primos  septem  annos  a3tatis  habet,”  said  Stahl. 


INTRODUCTION. 


25 


The  different  paths  of  activity  are  sketched  out. 
The  child  has  but  to  advance  with  a firmer  step 
each  day,  under  the  action  of  education,  more 
and  more  effective  and  decisive  as  time  goes  on. 
And  that  is  why  our  observations  cease  as  soon 
as  he  begins  to  learn  to  read  and  to  write,  at  the 
moment  when  the  pupil  succeeds  the  child. 

The  facts  that  we  have  gathered  together  from 
others,  as  well  as  those  borrowed  from  our  own 
personal  experience,  have  been  distributed  and 
classified  under  the  ordinary  heads  and  divisions 
adopted  by  general  psychology.  All  that  can  be 
said  further  in  favour  of  this  traditional  distri- 
bution of  material  is  that  no  other  is  possible. 
We  were  inclined  at  the  outset  to  adopt  a general 
division  in  two  distinct  parts : we  would  have 
studied  the  child  before  he  can  speak,^^  and  the 
child  while  learning  and  after  he  has  learned  to 
speak.""^  But  the  difficulties  in  carrying  out  this 
plan  obliged  us  to  give  it  up,  although  doubt- 
less it  would  have  had  its  interest.  We  should 
have  had  to  return  to  two  considerations  of  the 
same  faculties — to  consider,  for  instance,  memory 
or  imagination  before  and  after  the  acquisition 
of  language — and  would  have  doomed  ourselves 
to  constant  repetitions.  Whatever  influence  lan- 
guage may  have  on  the  development  of  thought, 
it  does  not  constitute  a sharp  line  of  division. 

To  tell  the  truth,  it  would  be  better  to  have 
no  divisions  at  all.  What  a contrast  there  is  be- 
tween the  reality  and  the  image  we  are  trying  to 
make  of  it,  between  the  model  and  the  copy,  be- 
tween the  child  in  his  living  unity,  developing 


26  the  development  of  the  child. 


harmoniously  and  simultaneously  all  his  powers 
of  body  and  of  soul,  and  the  piecemeal,  fragmen- 
tary studies  to  which  the  needs  or  wants  of  anal- 
ysis reduce  us ! But  this  is  a fault  common  to 
all  scientific  research.  And  these  necessities  are 
perhaps  more  imperative,  just  as  the  inconven- 
iences resulting  from  them  are  more  apparent 
when  the  question  is  one  of  the  history  of  the 
child — that  is  to  say,  of  a being  that  is  not  yet 
wholly  formed,  whose  faculties  are  being  organ- 
ized, in  whom  the  different  phenomena,  one  ob- 
scuring and  effacing  the  other,  constitute,  as  it 
were,  the  successive  texts  of  a palimpsest,  written 
one  over  the  other.  We  are  far,  therefore,  from 
having  reached  the  period  of  complete  differen- 
tiation which  will  characterize  maturity.  We 
assist  in  a sort  of  fermentation,  in  which  every- 
thing is  mingled  and  confused.  So  that,  in  order 
to  know  where  we  are,  it  is  so  much  the  more 
necessary  to  multiply  the  distinctions,  the  divis- 
ions of  the  analysis,  and  to  apportion  out  in  the 
compartments  of  a dry  nomenclature  facts  which 
Nature,  ever  active,  has  united  and  associated. 
You  will  complain,  perhaps,  of  finding  too  many 
little  things,  too  many  trifles,  in  this  work.  But 
the  psychology  of  the  child  can  not  be  more 
than  a collection  of  little  acts,  so  small  that  we 
sometimes  ask  ourselves  where  we  shall  find 
words  discriminating  enough  to  describe  them. 
These  little  things  are  great,  moreover,  because 
of  their  results,  inasmuch  as  they  contain  the 
germs  of  the  future  soul,  and  of  all  development 
of  the  human  personality.  Finally,  they  partake 


INTRODUCTION. 


27 


of  tlie  charm  that  is  attached  to  the  beginnings 
of  everything,  and  more  particularly  to  the  be- 
ginnings of  what  the  poet  calls  a frail  hope  of 
the  soul”  We  shall  be  satisfied,  for  our  part, 
if  we  succeed  in  investing  the  pages  of  this  book 
with  something  of  the  sweet  charm  of  the  child, 
and  in  communicating  to  our  readers  a little  of 
the  pleasure  which  we  have  foun^  in  studying 
him. 


CHAPTER  I. 


THE  NEWBORN  CHILD. 

I.  The  observation  of  the  child  should  begin  at  birth. — Differ- 
ent reasons  for  the  necessity  of  determining  exactly  the 
state  of  the  newborn  child. — Is  there  a psychology  of  the 
foetus  ? — To  what  are  the  psychical  phenomena  of  the  intra- 
uterine life  reduced  ? To  a few  tactile  sensations  and  a few 
motions. — Frariere’s  Education  anterieure. — Malebranche’s 
opinion  on  the  communication  between  the  mother’s  brain 
and  that  of  the  child.— Cabanis’s  opinion.  II.  Infant  psy- 
chology does  not  begin  before  birth. — The  starting  point  of 
the  psychic  life  is  almost  zero. — The  automatic  and  in- 
stinctive life  of  the  first  days. — Development  of  hereditary 
germs. — The  normal  child  and  the  idiot. — Particular  char- 
acteristics of  instinct  in  the  little  child. — Compared  with  the 
instinct  of  young  animals. — The  child’s  weakness. — At  what 
moment  does  consciousness  begin  f — Painful  sensations  ex- 
ceed the  agreeable  sensations  at  first. — Observers  have  laid 
stress  on  the  child’s  sufferings. — There  is  another  side  to  this 
question,  and  Nature  has  provided  the  child  with  some  im- 
pressions of  pleasure. 

I. 

I HARDLY  know  how  to  say,  without  being 
commonplace,  that  there  is  no  more  interesting 
moment  to  study  in  the  life  of  the  child  than 
that  in  which  he  comes  into  the  world,  when  his 
little  body,  like  a ripe  fruit,  is  detached  from 
that  of  his  mother.  ^^The  child  is  born  when 

28 


THE  NEWBOEN  CHILD. 


29 


liis  body  is  prepared  for  an  independent  organic 
life.^^  * Being  adequately  equipped  by  Nature,  in 
spite  of  the  weakness  and  delicacy  of  his  organs, 
to  live  henceforth  his  own  physical  life,  and  to 
face  the  struggle  for  existence,  the  newborn 
child,  who  is  about  to  breathe,  to  be  nourished — 
in  a word,  to  perform  the  different  functions  of 
the  material  life — is  already,  in  some  ways,  in  ad- 
dition to  this,  a sentient  being.  A principle  of 
spiritual  animation  exists  in  him  from  the  very 
first,  and  shows  itself  in  distinguishable  ways.  It 
is  not  too  soon,  then,  to  question  this  newcomer, 
who  appears  on  the  scene,  to  play  in  his  turn  and 
in  his  own  way  the  role  which  so  many  millions 
of  creatures  have  played  or  will  play  in  the 
course  of  time.  And  we  can  not  but  recommend 
to  the  imitation  of  psychologists  the  example  of 
the  diligent  and  eager  observers,  like  Mr.  Preyer, 
who  lose  no  time,  who  do  not  wait  even  till  the 
child  has  had  five  minutes  of  existence  before 
taking  him  to  the  window  to  see  what  effect  the 
light  of  day  exercises  upon  his  eyes ; who  do  still 
better  than  this,  even,  since  they  anticipate  the 
complete  birth,  and  profit  by  the  fact  that  the 
child^s  head  appears  first,  to  experiment  upon  the 
force  of  his  instinct  of  suction  by  putting  the  end 
of  his  finger  in  his  mouth. 

Under  what  conditions,  with  what  apparent 
germs  of  his  future  faculties  does  the  child  take 
possession  of  existence  ? What  badges  does  he 
wear  upon  his  forehead  to  announce  his  destina- 


Roger  de  Guimps,  Le  Livre  des  meres,  1862,  p.  17. 


30  the  development  of  the  child. 


tion  in  advance  ? Has  he  any  vague  conscious- 
ness of  the  life  that  is  just  beginning  ? Are  his 
senses  organized  and  ready  to  act  ? Is  his  feel- 
ing, of  which  he  gives  undeniable  proofs  at  the 
outset,  shut  up  in  a circle  of  painful  impressions 
and  of  suffering  ? Or  is  it  already  accessible  to 
comfort,  to  pleasure  ? In  a word,  what  is  his 
moral  state,  if  the  word  is  not  too  ambitious  for 
a poor  little,  almost  unconscious  being  who  will 
have  for  a time  but  two  occupations,  eating  and 
sleeping  ? 

Such  are  the  many  questions  to  be  considered, 
which  doubtless  can  not  be  exactly  solved  except 
by  an  analytic  study  of  the  different  kinds  of 
phenomena,  but  at  which  it  is  necessary  to  glance, 
as  a whole,  before  taking  them  up  in  detail.  And 
that  for  two  reasons,  drawn,  one  from  the  child^s 
future,  the  other  from  his  past,  for  he  has  a past 
even  now  ; from  his  future,  since  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  follow  the  subsequent  evolution  of  his 
faculties  with  precision,  if  we  did  not  begin  by 
forming  a clear  idea  of  his  starting  point ; from 
his  past,  since  only  an  exact  appreciation  of  the 
natural  gifts  that  he  possesses  at  his  birth  can 
assist  us  in  clearing  up,  within  the  range  of  the 
possible,  the  obscure  history  of  the  nine  months 
of  gestation,  and  in  judging  of  the  value  of  the 
suppositions  and  fancies  which  the  imagination 
of  some  dreamers  has  been  pleased  to  venture  on 
the  characteristics  of  the  intra-uterine  life. 

Let  us  begin  by  establishing  the  fact  that  the 
first  days — at  least  the  first  hours — of  life  consti- 
tute a period  of  crisis,  and  a change  of  condition 


THE  NEWBORN  CHILD. 


31 


which  has  profound  reverberations  in  the  body 
and  in  the  mind  of  the  child.  The  independent 
life  of  the  newborn  child  is  evidently  not  a con- 
tinuation, with  the  same  characteristics,  of  the 
foetal  life.  When  a river  that  has  been  subter- 
ranean finally  comes  to  flow  above  the  surface, 
its  waters,  although  they  now  reflect  the  rays 
of  the  sun,  preserve,  nevertheless,  with  the  new 
flashes  of  light,  the  same  system  and  the  same  gait. 
It  is  different  in  the  case  of  the  child,  for  whom 
birth  is  equivalent  to  a veritable  metamorphosis. 
He  has  changed  from  a parasite  to  a personal 
human  being  ; he  has  become  individualized ; he 
lives  by  himself.*  His  heart,  which  a short  time 
ago  was  beating  a double  time,  now  beats  triple 
time.  His  lungs,  up  to  this  time  inactive,  are  be- 
ginning the  seesaw  motion  that  ends  only  when 
life  ends.  On  the  other  hand,  his  senses,  which 
have  been  shielded  from  the  action  of  the  outside 
world,  are  exposed  from  this  time  on  to  continual 
solicitations  ; a flood  of  impressions  of  every  sort 
bursts  upon  the  frail  creature,  threatening  to 
bruise  his  delicate  organs,  and  to  provoke  those 
momentary  troubles  called  convulsions.  His 
body,  which  has  been  surrounded  by  an  equal 
heat,  sheltered  from  the  air,  is  now  exposed  to 
the  variations  of  temperature,  to  the  influence  of 
cold,  which,  if  too  intense,  will  cause  a peculiar 

* “ The  first  sleep  of  the  newborn  child  forms  a transition 
between  the  intra-uterine  existence,  which  is  closely  bound  to 
that  of  the  maternal  organism,  and  a mode  of  existence  rela- 
tively more  independent.”  (D’Ammon,  Livre  d’or  de  la  jeune 
femme,  Paris,  1891.) 


32  the  development  op  the  child. 


malady  which  the  French  call  silerine.  His 
limbs,  which  were  almost  immovable  in  the  nar- 
row prison  that  inclosed  them,  stretch  themselves 
ont  comfortably  and  test  their  power  of  unre- 
stricted motion.  There  is  in  all  these  changes,  in 
this  general  transformation,  in  this  adaptation  to 
a new  medium,  a process  full  of  difficulties  and 
of  dangers,  a period  of  transition,  possessing  its 
own  characteristics.  In  view  of  this  fact  phy- 
sicians divide  first  infancy  into  two  periods  : the 
period  of  the  newborn  babe  and  the  period  of  the 
child  at  the  breast. 

If  it  is  important  that  the  psychologist’s  ob- 
servation should  be  directed  first  toward  the 
threshold  of  life,  it  is  because  the  child,  as  we 
have  said,  when  studied  and  observed  from  the 
very  first  hour,  tells  us  in  a certain  degree,  al- 
though confusedly,  what  has  taken  place  in  the 
intra-uterine  life,  what  the  child  has  felt  from 
the  very  beginning  of  his  existence.  In  any 
case,  it  teaches  us  at  what  point  the  anterior 
psychic  development  was  definitely  arrested,  if 
there  can  have  been  a development  of  this 
kind. 

According  to  certain  philosophers,  there  would 
be  a psychology  of  the  foetus,  and  the  first  page 
of  the  book  of  the  child — that  is  to  say,  the  one 
containing  the  description  of  the  newborn  babe 
— would  itself  require  an  introduction,  a preface 
of  some  length,  in  which  the  psychological  secrets 
of  the  period  before  birth  would  be  disclosed.  It 
was  an  idealist,  strange  to  say,  that  advanced  this 
opinion.  Malebranche  did  not  hesitate,  as  he  says 


THE  NEWBORN  CHILD. 


33 


himself,  to  consider  the  child^s  brain  in  the  moth- 
er's womb  before  examining  what  happens  to  it 
after  birth ; * and  he  admitted  that  there  is  a 
wonderful  communication  between  the  mother’s 
brain  and  that  of  the  child — a communication 
from  which  would  follow,  according  to  him,  the 
particular  dispositions  of  the  imagination  in  each 
one  of  us.f  The  same  discussion  has  been  taken 
up  in  a comparatively  recent  work,  I’Education 
Anterieure,  by  de  Frariere.J  It  is  the  mother,  in 
this  account,  who  would  be  responsible  above  all 
for  the  nature  of  the  child,  and  maternal  influ- 
ence would  appear  in  a wholly  new  light. 

But  they  go  still  farther.  They  are  not  con- 
tent to  advance  the  theory  that  in  an  unconscious 
way,  and. by  mysterious  relations,  the  brain  of 
the  foetus  feels  the  influence  of  the  mother’s 
brain ; they  attribute  a real  mental  life  to  the 
child  before  birth.  Ribot,  while  declaring  that 
the  senses  are  in  a state  of  torpor  in  the  foetus — 
which  is  perhaps  saying  too  little,  for  the  truth 
is  that  they  are  not  even  completely  organized — 
makes  bold  to  affirm  in  explicit  terms,  after  Ca- 
banis,  that  the  child  before  birth  has  already 
thought  and  willed  ; he  gives  only  an  insufficient 


* This  is  the  subject  of  Chapter  VII  of  the  second  book  of 
the  Recherche  de  la  verite. 

t Malebranche  believed  this  intercerebral  communication  to 
be  powerful  enough  to  produce  deformed  children  in  conse- 
quence of  a mother’s  disordered  imagination. 

t Education  anterieure,  influence  maternelle  pendant  la 
gestation  sur  les  predispositions  morales  et  intellectuelles  des 
enfants,  Paris,  Didier,  1863. 


34 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CHILD. 


proof  of  this,  namely,  that  in  the  last  stages  of 
gestation  the  embryo  moves.*  A German  author, 
Kussmaul,  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  intelli- 
gence begins  to  develop  from  the  intra-uterine 
life ; he  adds,  it  is  true,  that  it  develops  only 
very  imperfectly.  Perez,  who  cites  Kussmaul, 
claims  in  his  turn  that  the  soul  of  the  foetus, 
half  formed,  half  active,  is  perhaps  vaguely  con- 
scious, f He  says  in  another  place,  speaking  more 
positively,  that  direct  experiments  upon  either 
the  embryo  or  the  child  prematurely  born  indi- 
cate, at  least  for  the  last  stages  of  gestation,  a 
remarkable  ensemble  of  faculties  already  quali- 
fied to  enter  upon  their  work.J 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  facts 
cited  in  support  of  these  hypotheses,  of  these 
exaggerations  of  statement,  fall  far  short  of  justi- 
fying them.  And  Perez  himself,  in  making  a 
resume  of  PreyePs  book  on  the  Special  Physi- 
ology of  the  Embryo,*  does  it  in  these  words : 
^^We  can  not  deny  that  the  foetus  in  the  last 
stages  of  gestation  may  have,  in  point  of  common 
sensations,  a feeling  of  pleasure  and  of  pain,  the 
muscular  sense,  and  also  hunger ; there  is  the 
whole  balance  sheet  of  uterine  psychology.^^  || 
These  are  meagre  results,  you  will  say ; and  for 
all  that  it  seems  to  us  difficult,  in  spite  of  the 
wonders  expected  from  new  experiments,  plans 


* Ribot,  De  I’Heredite,  first  edition,  p.  315. 
f Perez,  Les  troi^  premieres  annees  de  I’enfant,  p.  3. 
X Perez,  Revue  philosophiqiie,  June,  1887,  p.  585. 

Special  Physiology  of  the  Embryo. 

I Revue  philosophique,  1887,  p,  586, 


THE  NEWBORN  CHILD. 


35 


for  which  are  still  to  be  discovered  to  go  much 
farther  than  that. 

It  is  with  the  elaboration  of  the  material  or- 
ganism that  Nature  is  silently  occupied  during 
the  long  months  of  gestation.  The  physiology 
of  the  embryo  will  consequently  have  interesting 
work  before  it  to  establish  how  the  brain  of  the 
foetus  is  developed  little  by  little,  how  the  organs 
of  the  senses  are'  formed  materially.*  But  psy- 
chology proper  has  almost  nothing  to  gather 
from  this  obscure  period  when  life  is  being  pre- 
pared for,  not  only  because  it  is  difficult  to  find 
out  what  is  going  on,  but  because,  from  the  men- 
tal point  of  view,  nothing,  or  almost  nothing,  is 
going  on.  It  was  allowable  for  Malebranche 
(thanks  to  the  hypothesis  of  a soul  completely 
formed,  so  to  speak,  in  the  very  beginning)  to 
believe  that  the  child  in  the  womb  of  his  mother 
has  the  same  feelings  and  the  same  impressions 
as  his  mother,  t But  when  one  is  convinced,  as 
we  all  are  to-day,  that  the  intellectual  principle 
can  not  be  developed,  and  can  not  act  until  it  is 
provoked  by  excitations  from  without,  that  it  re- 
mains inert  in  the  state  of  a germ  until  the  day 
when,  like  a ray  of  sun  putting  life  into  the  grain 


* On  the  development  of  the  brain,  see  Charlton  Bastien’s 
Le  Cerveau  organ  de  la  pensee  (Paris,  G-ermer  Bailliere,  1882, 
vol.  ii),  chap,  xix,  of  the  fourth  book,  Developpement  du  cerveau 
humain  pendant  la  vie  uterine. 

t According  to  Malebranche,  the  soul  is  not  generated  by 
the  mother,  but,  absolutely  independent  of  the  brain,  just  as* 
reason  is  independent  of  experience,  it  finds  itself  in  full  pos- 
session of  itself  at  the  very  first. 

4 


36  the  development  of  the  child. 


sown  in  the  earthy  the  sensation  comes  to  vivify 
it,  to  set  it  going,  to  give  it  the  initial  movement, 
then  one  can  not  deceive  one's  self  as  to  the  pre- 
tended thoughts  and  volitions  of  the  foetal  brain. 

We  must  not  forget  that  the  foetus  is  plunged 
in  a deep  sleep,  in  a lethargic  state  ; and  the  proof 
of  this  is  that  the  newborn  child  seems  to  find 
difficulty  in  shaking  off  this  torpor,  that,  after 
having  satisfied  his  hunger,  he  falls  back  peri- 
odically into  sleep  and  lethargy.  The  psychic 
life  is  so  little  developed  before  birth  that  the 
awakened  life  does  not  yet  exist.  Some  vague 
sensations,  doubtless  analogous  to  those  felt  by 
one  in  a dream,  succeed  with  great  difficulty  in 
penetrating  through  the  accumulated  obstacles 
to  the  child.  But  to  what  do  they  reduce  them- 
selves ? There  can  be  no  question  of  luminous 
sensations  in  the  dark  dungeon  in  which  the 
child  is  confined ; not  even  of  acoustic  sensations, 
whatever  Cabanis  may  have  thought  about  it.* 


* Cabanis  says  : “ It  is  necessary  to  call  attention  to  the  fact 
that  the  foetus  may  not  be  an  entire  stranger  to  two  kinds  of 
sensations,  whose  proper  organs,  however,  are  not  in  full  activity 
until  after  birth : I mean  the  sensations  of  light  and  of  sound. 
Many  psychological  and  pathological  facts  show  that  the  action 
of  external  light  is  not  indispensable  in  order  that  the  cerebral 
centre  and  even  the  immediate  organ  of  sight  should  receive 
luminous  impressions.”  Cabanis  consents  to  conclude  on  this 
point,  however,  that  the  foetus  can  have  no  idea  of  the  light  of 
day,  nor  of  colours.  As  to  hearing,  he  claims  that  “the  foetus 
may  have  received  impressions  of  sound,  that  it  may  at  least 
have  heard  confused  noises,  and  that  it  is  difficult  to  conceive 
that  these  impressions  are  not  frequently  renewed  during  the 
time  of  gestation.”  VVe  are  sorry  not  to  agree  with  this  opinion, 


THE  NEWBORN  CHILD. 


37 


If  the  newborn  child  is  deaf — and  he  certainly 
is  in  the  first  hours  of  life — how  can  it  be  seri- 
ously held  that  he  has  perceived  sonorous  vibra- 
tions when  the  causes  of  obstruction  were  greater 
and  the  conditions  of  penetration  less  favour- 
able ? The  uniformity  of  the  medium — every 
sensation  presupposing  a diversity  of  impres- 
sions, a "differentiation,^^  as  they  say  to-day — 
prevents  also  the  possibility  of  the  child^s  having 
gustatory  and  olfactory  sensations,  washed  on  all 
sides  as  he  is  by  the  liquid  that  surrounds  him. 
There  remains,  then,  no  possibility  of  sensations 
other  than  those  of  the  tactile  and  cutaneous  sen- 
sibility ; and  still  how  limited ! for  the  reason 
just  indicated — that  is  to  say,  the  uninterrupted 
continuity,  the  uniform  and  therefore  insensible 
action  of  the  same  surrounding  medium. 

Moreover,  what  can  these  rare  tactile  sensa- 
tions be  ? In  the  first  place,  they  are  never  pro- 
duced until  the  hundredth  day.  Luys  says : " We 
can  see  from  the  fourth  month  that  the  nervous 
system  begins  to  react,  and  to  reveal  the  vitality 
of  the  different  phenomena  which  compose  it. 
We  know,  indeed,  that  from  this  time  on  the 
foetus  is  sensible  to  the  action  of  cold,  that  its 
spontaneous  motions  can  be  developed  by  laying 
a cold  hand  upon  the  body  of  the  mother ; we 

but  we  think,  not  only,  as  Cabanis  finally  acknowledges,  that 
“ the  education  of  the  ear  is  not  yet  very  far  advanced,’’  but 
that  it  has  not  begun  at  all.  It  is  interesting  to  find  that 
the  realist  Cabanis  and  the  idealist  Malebranche  agree  in  their 
conclusions  : the  one  imagines  a soul  perfect  and  complete,  the 
other  a brain  fully  organized  before  birth. 


38  the  development  op  the  child. 


know,  too,  that  it  makes  spontaneous  motions  to 
shield  itself  from  a pressure  that  disturbs  it  and 
brings  its  sensibility  into  play There  seems 
to  us  to  be  some  inaccuracy,  in  expression  at  least, 
in  the  passage  just  cited  ; the  motions  that  Luys 
speaks  of  could  not  be  called  spontaneous,""" 
since  they  are  caused  by  a disturbing  contact  or 
by  a sudden  impression  of  cold.  Their  existence 
is  not  to  be  doubted,  but  they  are  purely  reflex, 
analogous  to  those  produced  in  a baby  when  we 
tickle  his  foot  with  a feather.  Besides  these  re- 
flex motions  there  are  also  muscular  contrac- 
tions, doubtless,  even  in  the  foetus,  which  are 
spontaneous,  the  first  flutterings  of  the  being 
that  lives  and  is  beginning  to  move.f  These  mo- 
tions usually  become  perceptible  to  the  mother 
between  the  seventh  and  the  ninth  month  of  ges- 
tation. So  that  there  have  already  appeared  be- 
fore birth,  in  a very  rudimentary  form,  the  two 
essential  operations  of  all  mental  evolution : on 
one  side,  the  excitation  from  without  producing 
a reaction  of  the  interior  force  ; on  the  other,  the 
spontaneity,  the  inner  vitality  showing  a tendency 
to  act  for  itself. 

These  movements,  whether  reflex  or  sponta- 
neous, presuppose  at  least  a rudimentary  organi- 


* Luys,  Le  Cerveau  et  ses  fonctions,  Paris,  1876,  p.  100. 
t “ If  the  child  kicks  during  the  last  part  of  gestation,  if  he 
moves  uneasily,  more  impetuously  and  more  continually  as  well 
as  with  more  force,  it  is  not  because  he  finds  himself  hemmed 
in  and  is  uncomfortable,  but  his  limbs  have  acquired  a certain 
degree  of  strength,  and  he  feels  the  need  of  exercising  them.” 
(Cabanis,  Rapports  du  physique  et  du  moral  de  rhornme.) 


THE  NEWBORN  CHILD. 


39 


zation  of  the  nervous  and  of  the  muscular  system, 
together  with  the  exercise  of  these  phenomena 
proportionate  to  their  development.  But  the 
question  is  one  of  determining  whether  these 
phenomena  are  plunged  absolutely  in  the  dark- 
ness of  the  unconscious,  remaining  exclusively 
material,  or  whether,  on  the  contrary,  they  al- 
ready have  a right  side  and  a wrong  side,  the 
two  aspects,  one  material,  the  other  spiritual,  of 
all  psychic  facts  ; finally,  whether  a flash  of  con- 
sciousness accompanies  them  and  lights  them 
up  enough  to  produce  infinitesimal  sensations  of 
pain  or  of  pleasure.  We  incline  toward  the  sec- 
ond hypothesis — although  it  is  impossible  to  es- 
tablish its  reality — at  least  for  the  last  months  of 
gestation,  when  the  motions  are  so  frequent  that 
the  almost  continuous  shock  excites  at  least  a 
faint  fluttering  of  consciousness.  Persuaded — 
and  it  is  impossible  not  to  be — that  conscious- 
ness permits  of  many  degrees,  that  it  resembles 
day  succeeding  night,*  after  all  the  shades  of 
dawn  and  early  morning  have  passed  away,  we 
see  no  difficulty  in  admitting  a priori  that  the 
first  stakes  of  this  slow  evolution  are  set  before 
birth.*  What  tends  to  confirm  this  supposition 
is  that  the  child  shows  himself  prepared  for 
pleasure  and  for  pain  as  soon  as  he  appears. 
We  are  permitted  to  conjecture  and  infer  what 

* This  is  the  opinion  of  most  psychologists.  However,  let 
us  note  a statement  to  the  contrary.  “ In  the  last  months  of 
gestation  the  human  foetus  is  susceptible  only  to  motility ; it 
moves,  reacts  under  a shock,  but  unconsciously,’-  (Letourneau, 
la  Sociologie,  Paris,  IdSO,  p.  526.) 


40 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CHILD. 


has  gone  on  behind  the  scenes  as  soon  as  the 
curtain  is  raised,  from  the  actions  and  gestures 
of  the  actor  before  us.  Now,  the  cries  of  the 
child  could  not  be  interpreted  as  absolutely  me- 
chanical and  unconscious  acts.  The  cries,  his 
first  salute  to  life,  which  express  suffering,  or  at 
the  least  a disagreeable  impression  produced  by 
the  surprise  of  a new  medium,  and  which  cer- 
tain philosophers  have  translated  thus,  I suffer, 
therefore  I exist'’'’ — these  cries  are  evidence  at 
least  of  a beginning  of  sensibility,  which  must 
have  been  prepared  and  exercised  to  a certain 
extent  in  the  intra-uterine  life. 

But  however  indulgent  we  may  be  in  our 
judgments,  and  while  granting  even  extreme  fa- 
vour to  the  conjectures  on  the  state  of  the  em- 
bryo, it  seems  impossible  to  grant  that  it  is  any- 
thing more  than  a muscular  automatism,  whose 
commotions  are  felt  more  or  less  in  the  nervous 
system ; nothing  in  any  case  that  resembles  intel- 
ligence, clear  and  distinct  perception.*  Nature, 
doubtless,  has  not  remained  inactive.  She  has 
made  and  adjusted  the  instruments.  All  the  es- 
sential parts  of  the  machine  are  in  their  place 
ready  for  work.  The  different  organs  of  the 
nervous  system,  and  of  the  brain  itself,  have  al- 
ready attained  an  advanced  degree  ‘of  develop- 
opment.  And  still  everything  remains  to  be 
done  that  shall  cause  the  intellectual  and  moral 

* Nothing,  above  all,  that  resembles  the  consciousness  of  self, 
which  Cabanis  attributes  to  the  foetus,  under  the  pretext  that  it 
has  already  received  the  first  impressions  of  which  the  idea  of 
resistance  and  the  idea  of  strange  bodies  arc  composed. 


THE  NEWBORN  CHILD. 


41 


germs  transmitted  by  heredity  to  pass  from  a 
state  of  passive  power  to  one  of  action. 

Is  it  true,  moreover,  as  the  author  of  L^Edu- 
cation  antdrieure  claims,  that  these  germs  are 
transmitted  to  the  embryo  in  part  by  a myste- 
rious communication  proceeding  from  the  brain 
of  the  mother  ? De  Frariere,  with  his  complacent 
imagination,  magnifies  a few  insignificant  facts, 
attributes  to  them  an  import  which  they  do  not 
possess,  and  concludes  that  he  has  discovered  a 
new  idea  whose  development,  so  he  says,  will 
warrant  anticipations  of  the  most  happy  conse- 
quences for  the  future  of  humanity.*  Indeed,  if 
it  depended  upon  the  mother  to  fashion  in  her 
image,  by  the  thoughts  and  feelings  with  which 
she  occupies  her  own  mind,  the  little  being  which 
she  carries,  we  should  have  almost  discovered  the 
secret  of  making  artists  at  will,  and  from  a moral 
point  of  view  of  making  good  men.  It  is  upon 
the  communication  of  musical  impressions  that 
De  Frariere  particularly  insists.  To  explain  the 
wonderful  talent  of  such  and  such  a musician  of 
genius,  it  would  be  enough  to  remember  that  his 
mother  performed  or  heard  a great  deal  of  music 
during  her  gestation,  f But  this  is  not  all ; the 
influence  of  impressions  received  while  in  the 
mother's  womb  would  extend  to  all  the  child's 
faculties. 

We  shall  first  observe  that  De  Frarifere's  the- 
ory, which  he  believes  to  be  new,  is  but  the  re- 
publication of  the  reveries  of  Malebranche,  who 


De  Frariere,  L’Education  anterieure,  p.  1.  f Ibid.,  p.  69. 


42 


THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  THE  CHILD. 


also  imagined,  as  we  have  already  said,  that  the 
brain  of  the  mother  modelled  in  its  own  likeness, 
physically  and  morally,  the  brain  and  body  of 
the  child.  The  author  of  the  Recherche  de  la 
V^rite  even  recounted  improbable  tales  on  this 
subject,  for  instance,  the  story  of  a mother  who 
looked  too  attentively  at  the  head  of  St.  Peter, 
and,  in  consequence,  was  delivered  of  a child 
whose  face  was  that  of  an  old  man.*  But  the 
fact  of  its  not  being  new  does  not  make  the  fancy 
of  anterior  education  any  the  more  trustworthy. 
The  moral  and  physical  health  of  the  mother 
does  assuredly  exercise  an  indirect  effect  upon 
the  embryo ; and  that  is  why  physicians  multi- 
ply their  prescriptions  in  recommending  to  young 
mothers  all  sorts  of  precautions  in  their  physical 
and  moral  regime.  A material  imprudence,  an 
excess  of  any  kind,  as  well  as  a moral  commotion, 
a nervous  crisis,  may  cost  the  life  of  the  child  by 
causing  a premature  birth,  or  may  inflict  upon  it 
an  organic  defoi^ity  or  a constitutional  malady 
that  will  never  be  outgrown.  But  no  one  thinks 
of  claiming  that  a feeling  of  sweet  content,  a calm 
and  serenity  of  mind  which  are  the  conditions 
of  happy  gestation,  can  transmit  the  same  dispo- 
sitions directly  to  the  child,  f 

It  is  not  in  a mysterious  exchange  performed 


* Recherche  de  la  Verite,  Book  III,  chap.  vii. 
f Cabanis,  however,  accepted  this  strange  hypothesis.  See 
the  passage  in  Rapports  dii  physique  et  du  moral  (dixieme  me- 
moire)  beginning  thus  : “ 1 shall  not  speak  of  the  sympathetic 
alTections  generated  in  the  foetus  by  the  close  relations  with  the 
mother,”  etc. 


THE  NEWBORN  CHILD. 


43 


during  the  double  life  of  a pregnant  mother,  nor 
is  it,  in  spite  of  the  popular  expression,  by  suck- 
ing the  mother's  milk,  that  the  child  acquires  the 
tastes,  the  hidden  inclinations,  the  instinctive 
tendencies  that  sleep  in  the  embryo  and  awaken 
but  slowly  in  the  newborn  child.  It  is  generation, 
not  less  mysterious,  it  is  true,  that,  together  with 
life,  causes  the  universal  qualities  of  humanity 
with  certain  peculiarities  of  race  and  of  family 
to  appear  in  the  being  begotten  and  conceived. 
Montaigne  knew  that  generation  transmits  to  us 
not  only  the  bodily  form,  but  the  cast  of  mind 
and  the  inclinations  of  our  fathers.*  If  there  is 
one  fact  established  to-day,  although  it  may  be 
inexplicable,  it  is  that,  thanks  to  heredity,  men- 
tal and  physical  traits  pass  from  ancestor  to 
descendant. 

But,  to  be  sure,  nothing  in  the  uterine  life 
betrays  the  existence  of  hereditary  dispositions ; 
it  is  only  after  birth  that  these  germs  can  open 
themselves  out.  It  was  in  vain  that  Cabanis  said 
that  the  foetus,  before  seeing  the  light  of  day, 
has  already  received  many  different  impres- 
sions, from  which  have  resulted  long  series  of 
volitions ; that  it  has  contracted  habits,  that  it 
feels  appetites  and  has  inclinations,  f The  appe- 
tites and  inclinations  are  not  shown  until  the 


* Montaigne,  Essais,  Book  II,  chap,  xxxvii.  Montaigne  re- 
minds us  that,  according  to  Aristotle,  among  certain  tribes  of 
antiquity,  in  which  the  institution  of  marriage  did  not  exist, 
children  were  assigned  to  their  fathers  by  resemblance. 

t Cabanis,  Rapports  du  physique  et  du  moral,  dixieme  me- 
moire. 


44  the  development  OF  THE  CHILD. 


child  is  born ; they  exist  by  Nature,  not  by  reason 
of  anterior  impressions.  The  habits  reduce  them- 
selves to  dispositions  in  the  management  of  the 
limbs,  and  they  result  from  the  position  in  which 
the  child^s  body  was  placed  ; he  will  keep  his  legs 
in  a more  or  less  bent  position,  in  the  form  of  a 
sabre,  and  when  he  is  put  into  a bath  will  try  to 
bring  the  soles  of  his  feet  together.  As  to  the 
^^long  series  of  volitions,^^  that  is  a mere  fancy, 
and  what  Cabanis  ambitiously  calls  the  ideo- 
logical state  of  the  foetus  is  equivalent,  so  to 
speak,  to  zero.  The  child  just  born  is  tabula  rasa, 
not  only  in  regard  to  the  external  world,  which 
he  has  not  yet  perceived,  but  relatively  to  ante- 
rior impressions,  which,  supposing  that  they  may 
have  existed,  and  that  they  may  have  called  forth 
a vague  beginning  of  consciousness,  have  at  least 
left  no  trace  behind  them,  no  remembrance,  and 
have  passed  away  as  shadows. 

II. 

Infant  psychology  begins  only  with  birth. 
From  this  time  on  the  work  of  adaptation,  of 
accommodation  of  the  little  human  being  to  the 
medium  in  which  he  is  called  to  live,  will  pro- 
ceed slowly.  The  nervous  system,  as  far  as  it  is 
formed  at  this  time,  and  in  the  proportion  that  it 
will  develop  further,  will  respond  to  the  inces- 
sant excitations  of  external  objects.  The  brain, 
which  gains  every  day  in  consistency,  physically 
speaking,  will  become  little  by  little  the  regu- 
lator of  the  child^s  actions  and  the  seat  of  con- 


TnE  NEWBORN  CHILD. 


45 


sciousness.*  Instincts  will  be  exercised  from  the 
beginning,  preparing  imperceptibly,  for  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  conscious  life.  Sensations  will 
succeed  sensations,  growing  clearer  and  more  de- 
fined, determining  by  their  repeated  impressions 
an  internal  sense,  so  to  speak,  an  individual  con- 
sciousness ; an  intermittent  consciousness  at  first, 
which  is  formed  and  dissolved,  which  makes  and 
unmakes  itself  continually,  with  the  alternation 
of  sleeping  and  of  waking,  and  which  can  hardly 
be  completely  formed  as  long  as  sleep  absorbs 
the  greater  part  of  infantine  existence.  In  a 
word,  the  psychological  woof  is  going  to  weave 
itself  thread  by  thread,  slowly,  it  seems,  if  we  fol- 
low the  daily  acquisitions  step  by  step,  but  with 
marvellous  facility  when  we  consider  the  noth- 
ingness of  the  starting  point. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  starting 


* See  Parrot’s  observations,  “ Sur  le  developpement  du  cer- 
veau  chez  les  enfants  du  premier  %e,”  in  the  Archives  de  physi- 
ologie  normale  et  pathologique,  1879,  Nos.  5 and  6.  The  result  of 
his  research  is  that  the  brain,  soft,  semitransparent,  friable,  very 
aqueous,  of  an  almost  uniform  tint  and  homogeneous  appear- 
ance at  first,  is  condensed  little  by  little,  becomes  more  solid, 
and  two  colourations  appear.  From  month  to  month  the  prog- 
ress becomes  mqre  marked.  One  fact  important  to  notice  is 
that  the  development  of  the  right  side  appears  before  that  of 
the  left  side.  And  in  this  connection  Parrot  calls  to  mind  the 
fact  that  the  right  hand  is  controlled  by  the  left  hemisphere, 
that  the  organ  of  articulate  language  has  its  seat  in  the  left 
hemisphere.  “But,”  he  says,  “it  must  be  remarked  that  the 
predominance  of  the  right  hand,  as  well  as  the  power  of  speak- 
ing, does  not  manifest  itself  until  some  time  after  birth — that  is 
to  say,  after  a long  period  of  improvement.” 


46  the  development  op  the  child. 

point  of  the  mental  development  of  the  child  is 
almost  at  zero.  J ust  as  we  do  not  accept  the  illu- 
sions of  poets  and  of  mothers — maternal  love  is 
the  most  deceiving  of  poets — who  would  see  a 
marvel  of  beauty  in  the  newborn  babe,  in  this 
little,  red,  wrinkled,  squinting  thing,  as  Gustave 
Droz  says,*  so  we  shall  not  invest  the  poor  little 
creature  with  sensations  and  emotions  of  which 
its  moral  destitution  will  not  permit.  ‘^^At  the 
same  time  that  he  leaves  darkness  and  sees  light 
for  the  first  time,^^  said  Malebranche,f  the  cold- 
ness of  the  outside  air  strikes  upon  him ; the 
most  caressing  touch  of  the  woman  that  receives 
him  hurts  his  delicate  organism  ; all  exterior  ob- 
jects surprise  him  ; they  are  all  objects  of  fear  to 
him,  because  he  does  not  known  them  yet,  and 
because  he  has  no  means  of  defence  or  of  fiight. 
The  tears  and  cries  with  which  he  consoles  him- 
self are  infallible  signs  of  his  troubles  and  of  his 
terrors,  for  they  are  the  prayers  which  Nature 
offers  for  him,  asking  those  who  care  for  him  to 
defend  him  from  the  ills  that  he  suffers  and  from 
those  he  fears.'''’  This  is  undoubtedly  a tempting 
conception,  which  poetizes  the  first  days  of  life 
by  imagining  a child  capable  of  feeling  astonish- 
ment, fright,  and  pain.  How  dramatic  the  en- 
trance upon  existence  would  be  if  the  newcomer 
should  see  the  world  opening  out  before  him  for 
the  first  time  with  the  eyes  of  an  intelligent 
and  sensible  spectator ! But  for  these  emotions. 


* Gustave  Droz,  L’Enfant,  Paris,  1885,  p.  20. 
f Malebranche,  Recherche  dc  la  vcrite,  Book  II,  chap.  viii. 


THE  NEWBORN  CHILD. 


47 


whether  terrifying  or  soothing,  to  be  possible,  it 
wonld  be  necessary  for  the  newborn  child  to  be 
considered  as  being  somebody;  and  the  trouble 
is,  that  as  yet  nobody  is  there.  It  is  Nature,  it  is 
not  yet  the  individual,  that  manifests  itself  in  the 
first  motions  and  the  first  cries  of  the  child.  His 
senses,  with  the  exception  of  touch,  do  not  enter 
immediately  into  activity.  He  is  deaf,  he  is 
blind ; he  is  mute  also  in  spite  of  his  cries,  for 
he  is  mute  who  can  not  put  significance  into  the 
sounds  he  makes.  His  movements  are  purely 
reflex,  totally  lacking  in  conscious  intention,  de- 
termined, at  the  most,  by  a mechanical  instinct. 
Let  us  give  up  looking  for  a little  man  where 
there  is  still  only  an  automaton. 

Although  the  child  has  left  his  mother^s  womb, 
and  will  henceforth  live  an  independent  life,  still 
there  is  as  yet  nothing  of  the  individual  or  per- 
sonal. The  first  days  help  us  only  in  the  devel- 
opment of  hereditary  germs,  and  do  not  show  us 
anything  that  resembles  a distinct  mental  physi- 
ognomy. We  may  say  of  the  child  what  natural 
scientists  say  of  the  animal : The  psychic  activi- 

ty of  the  animal  has  nothing  personal  in  it ; it  is 
transmitted  without  change  of  form  from  gener- 
ation to  generation  ; here  we  have  hereditary  in- 
stinct and  nothing  more.  But  as  soon  as  con- 
sciousness develops  intelligence  appears ; it  grows 
with  the  consciousness ; a personal  psychic  ac- 
tivity is  combined  at  every  step  with  the  heredi- 
tary activity ; intelligence  is  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  instinct,  modifies  it,  and  transforms  it 
in  a thousand  ways ; the  original  canvas  is  cov- 


48  the  development  op  tee  child. 


ered  with  embellishments.'’^  * The  original  can- 
vas in  the  case  of  the  child  reduces  itself  to  a 
few  instincts,  whose  evolution  consists  of  con- 
stant reappearance  nnder  the  same  forms.  Jnst 
as  medals  come  forth  from  a crucible,  one  by 
one,  bearing  the  same  impression  and  the  same 
effigy,  so  the  successive  generations  of  human- 
ity repeat  the  same  role  from  age  to  age,  or,  so 
to  speak,  spell  the  same  alphabet  in  their  begin- 
nings of  life.  If  it  is  true,  as  anatomists  declare, 
that  the  embryos  of  the  most  diverse  animal 
species,  including  the  human  species,  have  a very 
marked  trace  of  family  ties,  not  very  flattering 
to  our  vanity,  it  is  not  less  certain  that  all  new- 
born creatures  resemble  each  other,  trait  for 
trait,  in  their  instinctive  actions.  Inneity  (in- 
neite,  innateness  or  inborn  nature) — I mean  the 
personal  nature  with  its  original  characteristics 
— inneity,  this  first  antagonist  of  heredity  (edu- 
cation will  be  the  second),  does  not  show  itself 
yet.  It  is  the  impetus  of  heredity,  it  is  the  life 
of  the  species  that  triumphs,  not  having  met,  as 
yet,  whether  in  the  circumstances  of  a special 
medium  or  in  the  appearance  of  particular  incli- 
nations, in  the  development  of  what  physicians 
call  the  idiosyncrasy,  the  conflicting  forces  that 
will  modify  it  later.  We  can  not  conceal  the  fact 
that  if  the  life  of  the  newborn  child  is  at  first  ex- 
clusively instinctive  and  automatic,  it  is  because 
there  is  not  as  yet  a centre  of  action  and  of  direc- 


* Edmond  Perrier,  in  the  preface,  upon  mental  evolution  in 
the  French  translation  of  Romanes’  book.  Animal  Intelligence. 


THE  NEWBORN  CHILD. 


49 


tion  organized  in  the  brain.  The  activity  of  the 
child  will  show  itself  at  first  in  local  operations, 
so  to  speak,  responding  to  the  needs  or  the  sen- 
sibility of  each  organ  in  itself ; not  co-ordinate 
movements  of  the  limbs,  but  set  movements,  de- 
termined by  the  instinct  of  nutrition,  first  impres- 
sions of  the  senses.  The  newborn  child  is  really, 
as  Virchow  defined  it,  a purely  spinal  being 
and  there  is  some  point  in  the  comparison  that 
has  been  made  between  the  newborn  child  and  a 
decapitated  animal. 

One  proof  that  intelligence  proper,  even  in  the 
lowest  forms,  is  still  lacking,  is  the  significant 
fact  that  children  destined  by  Nature  to  be  idiots 
appear  the  same  in  the  beginning  as  those  that 
afterward  become  intelligent. 

For  instance,  this  is  how  Espinas  describes  a 
child  studied  from  the  first  minute  of  his  exist- 
ence : * March  12,  normal  birth,  male  sex,  nor- 
mal constitution,  medium  weight.  From  the  first 
day  a certain  number  of  definite  motions  refer- 
ring to  the  function  of  nutrition.  Buccal  prehen- 
sion of  the  finger  when  presented  to  him.  In 
yawning,  bends  the  head  toward  the  breast  of  the 
person  holding  him,  trying,  doubtless,  to  nurse. 
Motions  of  the  arms  not  co-ordinate ; strikes  his 
face  with  his  fingers.^^ 

Let  us  place  by  the  side  of  this  portrait  of  a 
normal  child,  predestined  to  acquire  all  his  facul- 
ties regularly,  an  observation  made  by  Bourne- 


* M.  A.  Espinas,  Observations  sur  un  nouveau-ne  in  the  An- 
nales  de  la  Faculte  des  lettres  de  Bordeaux,  1883,  p.  383. 


50  the  development  op  the  child. 

ville  on  a little  girl  doomed  to  idiocy:  Birth 

one  month  late.  During  the  first  six  months  the 
child  was  like  other  children.  From  that  time 
her  motions  diminished  almost  to  the  point  of 
immobility  of  the  limbs.  The  physiognomy, 
which  expressed  the  vivacity  and  other  charac- 
teristics common  to  children  of  that  age,  changed. 
She  took  on  an  air  of  imbecility,  which  she  still 
keeps.'’^  * 

So,  in  the  animal  life  of  the  first  days,  as  well 
as  in  the  vegetative  life  of  the  uterus,  nothing  as 
yet  betrays  the  future  man ; and  it  is  not  always 
possible  to  tell  in  advance  whether  one  has  to  do 
with  normal  or  abnormal  children.! 

The  instinctive  life  of  the  little  child,  more- 
over, has  characteristics  of  its  own  which  should 
be  noted.  The  human  instinct  does  not  seem  to 
be  endowed  in  the  same  degree  as  is  the  animal 
instinct  with  that  spontaneity,  that  infallibility, 
which  distinguishes  the  movements  and  actions 
of  little  animals,  and  as  a result  of  which  the  es- 
tablishment of  instinctive  operations  becomes  in 
the  twinkling  of  an  eye  an  accomplished  fact. 
In  man,  even  in  the  case  of  the  instincts,  there 


* Dr.  Bourneville,  Association  frangaise  pour  I’avancement 
des  sciences,  1889,  second  part,  p.  821.  The  minute  and  pre- 
cise observations  which  Dr.  Bourneville  has  made  for  fifteen 
years,  at  the  Salpetriere  and  at  Bicetre,  on  idiotic  children  will 
be  found  very  useful  and  profitable  in  the  study  of  the  ques- 
tions with  which  we  are  concerned. 

t We  must  state,  however,  that  this  is  the  exception,  and 
that  more  often  the  idiot  gives  evidence  of  his  misfortune  from 
the  very  beginning. 


THE  NEWBORN  CHILD. 


51 


are,  so  to  speak,  preparations,  gradations,  and  pe- 
riods. It*  we  examine  different  animals  at  the 
time  of  their  birth,^^  said  Bichat,  we  shall  see 
that  special  instincts  in  each  one  of  them  direct 
the  execution  of  particular  motions.  Young  quad- 
rupeds go  to  their  mothers  for  nourishment ; birds 
of  the  gallinaceous  order  lose  no  time  in  seizing 
the  grain  which  is  their  appointed  food ; while 
the  young  carnivorous  birds  only  open  their 
beaks  to  receive  the  nourishment  brought  to  the 
nest  by  the  parent  birds.  The  development  of 
instinct  in  the  child  is  much  slower.  Nurses 
know  well  from  experience  that  it  is  necessary 
to  take  all  sorts  of  precautions  and  care  in  induc- 
ing nurslings  to  take  the  breast,  to  place  them  in 
a particular  position,  which  they  are  incapable  of 
finding  for  themselves  ; a sort  of  apprenticeship, 
veritable  tactics  are  necessary.  In  the  human 
race  the  newborn  is  passive ; the  activity  is  all 
on  the  mother's  side."  * 

What  a difference  there  is  between  the  little 
animal  which  walks  as  soon  as  it  is  born,  knows 
how  to  find  its  mother,  to  run  after  its  food,  and 
to  get  itself  out  of  trouble,  and  the  poor  little  hu- 
man being  who  can  not  do  anything  by  himself, 
and  would  surely  perish  if  his  parents  did  not 
come  to  his  aid ! ""  The  young  bird  or  mammifer 

comes  into  the  world  with  a quantity  and  a pre- 
cision of  ancestral  knowledge  that  is  truly  aston- 
ishing. Little  chickens,  from  the  very  first  day, 
follow  the  motions  of  insects  with  their  eyes. 


* Dictionnaire  de  m4decine,  Dr.  Jaccoud,  article  Allaitement. 
5 


52  the  development  op  the  child. 


turning  their  heads  with  as  much  precision  as  a 
grown  fowl.  They  pick  up  crumbs  or  insects, 
showing  that  they  have  instinctive  perception 
of  distances,  and  also  the  faculty  of  measuring 
them  with  almost  infallible  exactness.  They  do 
not  try  to  touch  objects  out  of  their  reach,  as 
children  do  when  they  stretch  out  their  arms  to 
the  moon,  and  we  may  say  that  they  always 
reach  any  object  aimed  at ; they  never  miss  it 
by  more  than  a hair’s  breadth,  even  when  the 
point  in  view  is  no  larger  and  no  more  visible 
than  the  dot  of  an  V * And  observations  of  the 
same  sort  show  us  as  much  instinctive  precocity 
in  the  young  of  mammifers,  without  its  being 
possible  to  explain,  either  by  a rapid  education 
or  by  an  unconscious  imitation,  the  perfection  of 
their  activity,  f 

A very  different  sight  is  presented  by  the 
weakness  of  the  child,  who  can  not  hold  his 
head  erect  nor  control  his  limbs  for  prehension  or 
for  walking;  who  can  not  perceive  objects,  and 
still  less  appreciate  distances.  An  appeal  to  the 
principle  that  the  more  elevated  the  functions  of 
a being,  the  longer  and  more  painful  his  evolu- 
tion, will  not  suffice  to  explain  this  state  of  infe- 
riority ; it  will  not  apply  here,  except  in  the  case 
of  functions  common  to  animals  and  men.  NTo, 
the  real  reason  is  that  the  child  at  the  moment 
of  birth  has  not  attained  the  same  degree  of  ma- 


* Romanes,  Mental  Evolution  in  Animals, 
f See,  for  example,  Charlton  Bastian,  Le  cerveau  organo  de 
la  pensee,  vol.  i,  p.  177. 


THE  NEWBORN  CHILD. 


53 


turity  and  advancement  in  his  organism  that  the 
young  of  animals  have  reached. 

Instinct  is  a natural  tendency  to  perform  cer- 
tain actions,  a nisus,  a spontaneous  stimulus,  but 
appropriate  instruments  are  necessary  to  its  ex- 
ercise ; it  presupposes  a certain  development  of 
physical  parts,  and  particularly  of  the  nervous 
system.  Hence  the  tardy  appearance  even  in  the 
animal  species  of  certain  instincts — for  instance, 
of  the  faculty  of  flying,  which  naturally  will  not 
show  itself  until  the  young  birds  have  feathers. 
Hence,  also,  the  hesitations,  the  gropings  of  in- 
stinct in  the  child.  Suppose,  for  a moment,  that 
the  newborn  child  were  far  enough  advanced  in 
point  of  nervous  excitability  and  muscular  force 
to  hold  his  head  erect,  and,  above  all,  to  control 
and  direct  his  legs  and  to  walk  ; and  you  would 
see  him  run  to  his  wet-nurse  with  the  same  im- 
petuosity that  young  mammifers  run  to  their 
mothers  for  nourishment.*  One  fact,  among 
others,  that  shows  well  the  relations  between  the 
exercise  of  instinct  and  the  degree  of  strength  of 
the  organs,  is  that  a child  born  too  soon  is  inca- 
pable of  grasping  its  mother^s  nipple,  f 

At  what  moment  does  consciousness  begin  in 
this  pitiable  creature,  whose  activity  is  so  re- 
strained ? The  problem,  stated  in  this  absolute 
form,  can  not  be  solved. J There  can  be  no  ques- 

* “ Who  knows  but  that,  in  ages  to  come,  children  may  be 
born  able  to  walk  alone?”  (Dauriac,  L’Ame  du  nouveau-ne, 
dans  la  critique  philosophique,  1886,  vol.  ii,  p.  356. 

t Dictionnaire  de  medecine,  Dr.  Jaccoud,  article  Allaitement. 

X This  is  a question  of  the  same  sort  as  that  which  has  occu- 


54  the  development  of  the  child. 


tion  of  consciousness,  properly  speaking,  in  the 
beginnings  of  life — that  is  to  say,  of  this  feeling 
of  the  self,  which  permits  us  to  judge  of  our  ex- 
istence. It  may  be  said  of  the  child  as  of  the 
animal : 

“ Vivit  et  est  vitas  nescius  ipse  suas.” 

But  if  there  is  not  yet  consciousness  of  the 
self,  there  certainly  are  impressions  from  the 
very  first  day  which  are  vaguely  felt,  and,  in 

pied  theologians  and  scholastics  for  so  long : “ When  and  how 
is  the  soul  introduced  into  the  human  body  ? ’’  Two  contrary 
opinions  on  this  point  have  successively  prevailed : One,  tradu- 
cianism  or  generationism,  admits  that  the  soul  is  transmitted 
from  father  to  son.  This  is  the  opinion  of  Tertullian,  of  Saint 
Jerome,  and  of  the  majority  of  the  early  doctors  of  the  Church. 
Luther  adopted  this  view,  and  Leibnitz  seems  to  have  accepted 
it  also.  “ I am  inclined  to  believe  that  the  souls  that  will  one 
day  be  human  souls  have  existed  in  the  seed  in  the  ancestors 
back  to  Adam.”  (Essais  de  theodicee,  first  part,  section  91.) 
Leibnitz  added  that  these  souls,  purely  sensitive  or  animal,  do 
not  become  reasonable  until  the  moment  of  the  generation  of 
the  individuals  to  whom  they  are  to  belong.  The  other  opinion 
has  become  the  official  doctrine  of  theologians  ; it  is  creationism^ 
according  to  which  all  souls  are  created  directly  by  God.  “ The 
formula  by  means  of  which  the  schools  of  theology  define  it  is 
very  simple  : God  creates  souls,  and  infuses  them  into  the  body 
while  it  is  in  the  mother’s  womb,  when  the  body  is  ready  for 
animation.”  (Jean  Reynaud,  Terre  et  ciel,  p.  154.)  Saint  Thom- 
as wrote : “ Hereticum  est  dicere  quod  anima  intellectiva  tra- 
ducatur  cum  semine.”  These  are  the  different  objections  which 
this  theory  of  the  infusion  of  souls  into  the  body  raises,  the  time 
of  the  infusion  not  being  determined,  and  hence  left  A^ague — 
objections  which  are  turned  to  account  by  the  Neoplatonists, 
like  Jean  Reynaud,  in  order  to  justify  their  dreams  on  the  pre- 
existence of  the  soul,  on  their  migration  from  planet  to  planet, 
from  body  to  body. 


THE  NEWBORN  CHILD. 


consequonco,  conscious  of  themselves.*  If  we 
were  asked  what  is  the  first  act  of  consciousness 
so  understood,  we  should  not  hesitate  to  reply 
that  it  is  an  act  of  suffering,  of  physical  pain. 
The  child  feels  himself  suffer,''  says  Dauriac, 
therefore  he  knows  that  he  suffers."  The  con- 
clusion is  false,  and  not  warranted  by  the  prem- 
ise; but  the  premise  is  true,  if  understood  to 
mean  simply  that  there  are  little  sensations  of 
pain  which  are  felt  immediately,  if  they  are  only 
those  resulting  from  shocks  to  the  sense  of  touch, 
the  only  sense  that  enters  into  activity  at  once. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  in  the  first  weeks 
of  life  the  painful  sensations  overbalance  the 
pleasurable  ones ; and  if  a decisive  proof  of  this 
were  desired,  it  could  be  drawn  from  the  fact 
that  the  mortality  of  newborn  children  is  notably 
higher  than  the  average  mortality.  How  many 
children  succumb  almost  immediately  in  the 
struggle  between  their  frail  organisms  and  Na- 
ture ! For  how  many  are  the  first  and  last  breath 
separated  by  only  a few  months  or  a few  days ! 
The  proportion  of  mortality  during  the  first  year 
is  a quarter  of  the  children  born.  From  one  to 
six  years,  it  is  still  fifteen  or  sixteen  per  cent ; in 
the  period  of  six  to  fourteen  it  falls  to  two  or 
three  per  cent.f  I know  that  the  ignorance  and 


* It  is  the  result  of  an  effort  to  give  an  account  of  the  many 
different  phenomena  commonly  understood  in  the  word  “ con- 
sciousness ” that  certain  writers  have  risked  the  barbarism 
“ consciosity,”  which  would  be  to  consciousness  what  velleity 
is  to  will. 

f Dr.  D’ Ammon,  Livre  d’or  de  la  jeune  femme,  p.  242. 


56  the  development  of  the  child. 


carelessness  of  parents  are  in  great  part  respon- 
sible for  this  evil.  We  nmst  blame  clumsy  rear- 
ing rather  than  an  improvident  Nature  for  the 
fact  that  children  are  called  into  existence  only 
to  be  immediately  given  up  to  death.  But,  nev- 
ertheless, it  is  true  that  the  act  of  beginning  life, 
and  the  work  of  accommodation  to  external  cir- 
cumstances constitute  in  themselves  a period  of 
crisis,  when  the  assaults  of  disease  are  particu- 
larly numerous  and  formidable.  How  many 
doors  there  are  open  to  functional  disorders,  and 
what  a morbid  opportunity,  so  to  speak  ! writes 
a physician.*  The  most  delicate,  the  least  cared 
for,  die  from  attacks  of  physical  sickness ; but 
all,  even  the  most  healthy,  the  best  cared  for,  are 
affected  by  it ; all  have  to  suffer  more  or  less  in 
their  first  attempts  to  use  their  organs,  from  heat 
or  from  cold,  from  difficulties  of  alimentation, 
from  the  harshness  of  the  medium,  finally,  from 
the  adaptation  of  their  nerves  and  muscles  to  the 
conditions  of  life. 

So  it  is  a picture  of  the  chikTs  sufferings  that 
most  observers  have  been  pleased  to  give  us. 
From  Pliny  or  Lucretius,  down  to  our  own  times, 
it  has  been  repeated  : 

“ Then  the  poor  babe,  too,  like  a seaman  wrecked. 

Thrown  from  the  waves,  lies  naked  o’er  the  ground, 
Weakly,  and  void  of  every  vital  aid. 

When  Nature  first,  amid  his  mother’s  pangs. 

Casts  the  young  burden  on  the  realms  of  light. 


Dr.  Lorain,  article  Ages,  in  Dr.  Jaccoud’s  Dictionnaire  de 
medecine. 


THE  NEWBORN  CHILD. 


57 


And  leaves  to  pine  full  sore,  as  well  he  may, 

That  e’er  the  suffering  lot  of  life  were  his.”  * 

Modern  writers  also  have  preferred  to  consider 
the  painful  side  of  the  life  of  the  newborn  child. 
Mme.  Necker  de  Saussure  says : Pain  intro- 

duced man  to  the  world.  A throng  of  tumultuous 
sensations  assail  the  soul  at  its  first  appearance. 
The  air  forces  its  entrance  into  the  child's  lungs 
like  a rapid  torrent  and  irritates  them.  The 
light  dazzles  his  eyes  through  the  transparent 
veils  that  cover  them.  Suffering,  amazement, 
dizziness — this  is  what  comes  to  the  soul  at  the 
mysterious  moment  when  it  is  plunged  into  the 
whirlpool  of  life." 

There  is  some  exaggeration  in  these  sombre 
pictures,  as  well  as  the  pessimism  of  prejudice.! 
To  say  nothing  of  the  pleasures  which  compen- 
sate in  a measure  for  the  child's  suffering  in  the 
first  stages  of  his  life,  it  is  not  well  to  take  the 
suffering  itself  too  tragically.  It  is  moderate 
and  vague,  and  the  state  of  semiconsciousness, 
of  semisensibility,  in  which  the  child  is  still 
plunged,  if  it  denies  him  clear  perceptions  and 
definite  pleasures,  also  shields  him  from  too  acute 


* Lucretius,  De  Natura  Rerum,  J.  M.  Good’s  translation. 
Book  V. 

f The  general  opinion  seems  to  be  that  the  child  suffers 
without  compensation : “ The  newborn  child,  at  the  moment 
of  birth,  is  manifestly  susceptible  to  painful  impressions” 
(Letourneau,  La  Sociologie,  p.  526),  and  the  author  does  not 
tell  us  that  there  is  any  manifestation  of  agreeable  impres- 
sions. “ The  newborn  child  seems  to  me  to  express,  by  all  his 
attitudes,  ‘ the  fear  of  living  ’ ” (Dauriac). 


58  the  development  op  the  child. 


STiJffering.  We  must  not  believe  bis  cries;  tbe 
sign  of  expression  in  tbe  child  is  always  dispro- 
portionate to  tbe  thing  signified.  The  first  im- 
pressions made  on  the  child's  sensibility  have  not 
the  brutal  harshness  which  people  pretend.  It  is 
by  gradual  transitions  and  with  infinite  caution 
that  Nature  conducts  the  blind  and  deaf  just 
born  to  the  full  possession  of  sight  and  of  hear- 
ing. And  if  it  pleases  poets  to  represent  to  us, 
in  their  conventional  fictions,  a blind  and  wicked 
power  willing  to  cast  a naked  child  upon  a bare 
earth,  reality  shows  us,  on  the  contrary,  a far- 
seeing  Nature,  everywhere  present  and  active, 
which  has  prepared  for  the  child's  rest  and 
nourishment  in  the  soft  pillow  of  the  mother's 
breast,  with  its  comforting  warmth  and  its  gen- 
tle touch. 

During  the  first  months  of  life,"  says  Dr. 
Sikorski,  the  positive  or  agreeable  feelings,  re- 
sulting in  contentment  and  good  humour,  are 
maintained  by  a great  number  of  sensations ; the 
action  of  sucking,  the  tepid  bath,  a warm  bed,  a 
soft  light,  sweet  sounds,  a moderate  muscular 
activity.  Being  given  these  enjoyments  in  pro- 
fusion, the  child  offers,  ordinarily,  the  aspect  of 
serenity ; he  is  quiet,  patient,  cheerful ; he  makes 
many  motions;  his  face  wears  an  agreeable  ex- 
pression, his  eyes  are  opened  wide,  his  cheeks  are 
chubby."  * It  would  be  hard  to  see  in  this  pict- 
ure the  image  of  a suffering  and  unhappy  being 
condemned  by  Nature  to  a life  of  pain. 

* Revue  pliilosophique,  vol.  xix,  p.  244.  Le  developpement 
psyehique  de  I’enfant. 


THE  NEWBORN  CHILD. 


59 


But  we  can  not  push  these  preliminary  studies 
further  without  encroaching  upon  the  detailed 
analysis  which  we  shall  devote,  in  the  course  of 
this  work,  to  each  one  of  the  forms  of  mental 
activity.  Let  us  confine  ourselves  to  recalling 
the  fact  that  the  child  at  birth  has  only  the  ap- 
pearance of  a completed  being.  Even  from  the 
physical  point  of  view  he  is  still  only  a sketch, 
a rough  outline.  His  muscles,  his  nerves,  his 
organs,  are  made  of  milk,  so  to  speak."^^  His 
limbs  not  merely  have  to  grow ; even  consistency 
and  solidity  are  lacking  in  them.  With  his  tiny 
stature,  so  light  in  weight,  he  is  still  but  the  epit- 
ome of  a man,  an  abridgment,  whose  lines  are 
merely  sketched  and  vaguely  drawn.  The  re- 
markable part  of  it,  moreover,  is  that  there  will 
be  a correspondence  between  his  physical  growth 
and  his  intellectual  evolution.  The  dwarfishness 
of  idiots  has  often  been  proved.  A mother,  whose 
daughter  had  shown  evident  signs  of  intellectual 
atrophy  from  the  time  she  was  five  or  six  months 
old,  said,  ^^From  this  time  on  the  child  never 
grew.^^  But  what  is  lacking,  above  all,  in  the 
newborn  child  is  what  depends  upon  the  mental 
faculties.  Truly,  his  soul  is  not  yet  born  ; * it 
will  separate  itself,  little  by  little,  from  the  re- 
peated shock  of  sensible  impressions,  from  the 
play  of  actions  and  reactions  caused  by  the  con- 

* To  be  sure,  we  do  not  take  the  word  “ soul  ” in  its  meta- 
physical sense  as  a synonym  of  an  immaterial  principle.  In 
these  studies  of  pure  observation  we  have  nothing  to  do  with 
questions  of  substance  and  of  essence.  The  soul,  for  us,  is  sim- 
ply the  ensemhle  of  the  intellectual  and  moral  phenomena. 


60  the  development  of  the  child. 

stant  relation  of  the  excitations  of  the  external 
worlds  and  of  a nervous  organism  more  and  more 
developed  as  time  goes  on.  Nature  is  contented 
with  organizing  what  is  absolutely  indispensable 
to  a minimum  of  material  life,  and  this  even  on 
one  condition,  namely,  that  parents  shall  lend 
their  aid  to  the  work.  All  the  rest  is  the  free 
field  of  experience  ; the  perceptions,  emotions, 
ideas,  choices — in  a word,  the  conscious  acts  as  a 
whole,  will  result  from  daily  acquisitions  and  a 
slow  evolution. 


CHAPTER  II. 


MOVEMENTS  THE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY. 

I.  Movements  the  first  manifestations  of  life. — Initial  period 
one  of  torpor. — Extreme  motor  activity  of  the  child. — The 
vivacity  and  regularity  of  motions  correspond  in  a certain 
degree  to  intellectual  dispositions. — Counter-proof  in  the  ob- 
servations made  on  idiots. — Psychological  value  of  move- 
ments.— Classification  of  movements.  II.  There  are  not  only 
refiex  movements  in  the  child. — Spontaneous  movements, 
which  reveal  the  inner  energy. — Automatic  and  instinctive 
movements. — Character  of  automatic  movements ; they  are 
without  purpose;  they  are  not  co-ordinate. — These  move- 
ments do  not  disappear  with  childhood. — Purely  refiex  move- 
ments ; more  complicated  than  automatic  movements. — Why 
is  refiex  action  limited  and  sluggish  in  the  beginning? — 
Sneezing  a type  of  refiex  action.— Other  reflex  actions. — On 
what  part  of  the  nervous  system  do  they  depend  ? III.  In- 
stinctive motions. — Two  extremes ; of  those  who  see  instinct 
in  everything,  and  of  those  who  do  not  recognise  it  at  all. — 
The  action  of  sucking  a type  of  instinctive  movement. — 
Instinct  precedes  all  external  excitation. — Remarkable  pre- 
cision of  the  first  movements  of  sucking. — Rapid  modifica- 
tion of  instincts. — Consciousness  and  desire. — The  evolution 
of  the  motor  phenomena  precedes  the  evolution  of  conscious 
representations.  IV.  Other  movements  of  the  child. — Cries. 
— Different  interpretations  of  cries. — Partly  spontaneous, 
partly  reflex. — At  first  they  have  no  moral  significance. — 
The  prehension  of  objects. 

I. 

Movement  is  one  of  tlie  first  manifestations 
of  life  in  the  child — the  first,  indeed,  to  speak 

61 


62  the  development  of  the  child. 

exactly,  the  primary  mode  of  activity — for  the 
cries,  sneezing,  tears,  are  movements  also.  The 
internal  force  which  later  will  be  sensation,  re- 
flection, thought,  does  not  betray  itself  in  the 
beginning,  except  in  little  muscular  tensions. 
Everything  in  the  child^s  consciousness  is  still 
asleep,  and  already  the  activity  of  the  living  be- 
ing reveals  itself  in  an  extraordinary  profusion 
of  motions — in  a multitude  of  grimaces,  contor- 
tions, gestures  of  every  sort ; later,  when  the 
child  can  walk,  in  leaps  and  gambols.  There  is, 
doubtless,  a flrst  period,  when  it  seems  as  though 
the  deep  sleep  of  the  intra-uterine  life  were  pro- 
longed in  a sort  of  habitual  torpor  and  of  endless 
drowsiness.* 

The  child  is  dull  and  almost  inert.  But  the 
time  soon  comes  when,  according  to  the  popular 
expression,  he  does  nothing  but  kick.  One  sees 
not  only  determined  and  useful  movements,  such 
as  the  motion  of  the  lips  in  sucking,  and  that  of 
the  eyelids  in  protecting  the  eyes  from  too  strong 
a light,  but  a great  number  of  immoderate  and 
irregular  motions.  When  he  is  not  asleep,  when 

* According  to  Preyer’s  observations,  the  child  sleeps  sixteen 
hours  a day  during  the  firs^  month,  fourteen  hours  during  the 
third  month.  The  difference  between  the  sleep  of  the  intra- 
uterine life  and  that  of  the  newborn  child  results  principally, 
as  Dr.  Sikorski  states,  from  the  fact  that  in  the  former  the  ap- 
paratus of  the  organs  of  the  senses  are  sheltered  from  all  exter- 
nal excitation,  while  in  the  newborn  child  sleep  comes  from  the 
fatigue  which  the  sensitive  organs  in  their  state  of  weakness  feel 
very  soon.  The  work  of  the  muscles  of  respiration,  work  which 
does  not  exist  in  the  foetal  life,  seems  to  be  one  of  the  greatest 
sources  of  the  fatigue  felt  by  the  child. 


MOVEMENTS  THE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY.  63 

he  is  neither  tired  nor  ill,  the  child  a few  months 
old  is  all  motion ; his  arms  and  his  hands,  his 
legs  and  his  feet,  his  eyes,  lips,  head,  the  whole 
body — everything  in  motion.* 

Rabelais  is  wrong  when  he  says  that  the  child 
divides  his  existence  between  eating,  drinking, 
and  sleeping ; he  forgets  at  least  one  of  his  essen- 
tial occupations,  that  which  consists  in  motion — 
motion  sometimes  without  purpose  and  by  a sort 
of  automatic  play  of  the  muscles,  sometimes  for 
a definite  end,  conforming  to  his  needs. 

This  extreme  motor  activity,  which  is  the 
characteristic  of  childhood,  will  not  end,  more- 
over, with  the  awakening  and  the  progress  of  in- 
telligence. Even  when  the  child  is  capable  of 
governing  his  attention  motion  remains  as  the 
necessary  accompaniment  of  his  little  intellectual 
efforts.  A little  girl  consented  to  take  her  read- 
ing lesson  on  one  condition,  namely,  that  she 
should  be  permitted  to  have  her  fingers  occu- 
pied at  the  same  time,  and  that  she  might  draw 
her  needle  in  and  out  while  saying  the  letters 
of  the  alphabet. t And  when  the  movements  are 
not  voluntary,  concerted,  as  in  the  preceding  ex- 
ample, there  are  incoherent,  irregular  motions 


* “ When  my  little  girl  was  about  three  months  and  a half 
old  she  was  placed  on  a rug  in  the  open  air  in  the  garden,  where 
she  would  lie  on  her  stomach  or  on  her  back  for  an  hour  at  a 
time,  moving  her  arms  and  legs.”  (Taine,  Revue  philosophique, 
vol.  i,  p.  5. 

f “ When  children  learn  to  write,”  says  Darwin,  “ they  often 
twist  their  tongues  about  in  the  most  laughable  fashion  while 
following  the  motions  of  their  fingers.” 


C4:  the  development  of  the  child. 

which,  so  to  speak,  accompany  and  aid  the  begin- 
nings of  attention.  Go  into  a kindergarten — not 
during  recreation  time,  when  all  the  children  are 
skipping  about,  but  when  the  teacher  is  giving  a 
lesson — see  how  this  little  world  is  going  on,  how 
it  flutters,  how  it  recovers  from  the  relative  im- 
mobility that  has  been  imposed  upon  it  while 
seated,  by  all  sorts  of  forbidden  movements; 
glances  are  directed  now  to  the  right,  now  to  the 
left ; lips  pucker ; fingers  contract  or  extend ; 
heads  swing  from  side  to  side. 

The  study  of  movement,  then,  constitutes  one 
of  the  important  chapters  of  the  psychology  of  the 
child.  And  this  study,  interesting  in  itself,  will 
offer  more  attractions  still  when  we  consider  that 
there  is  a close  connection  between  the  particular 
evolution  of  the  motor  faculty  and  the  develop- 
ment of  all  the  intellectual  and  moral  faculties  at 
the  Childs’s  disposal.  As  a rule,  the  vivacity  and 
the  regularity  of  the  motions  of  the  newborn 
child  are  not  only  a sign  of  present  physical 
health,  they  are  a token  of  future  intellectual 
activity.  The  motions  of  the  normal  child  pre- 
sent this  double  characteristic,  that  they  are 
very  numerous,  very  varied,  and  also  that  by  the 
spontaneous  development  of  a sound  nature,  not 
less  than  by  the  action  of  education,  they  pass 
quickly  enough  from  the  disorder  and  chaos  of 
the  first  days  to  a state  of  progressive  co-ordina- 
tion. In  the  idiotic  child,  on  the  contrary,  ob- 
servers notice  either  inactivity,  obstinate  immov- 
ability, or  an  absolute  lack  of  co-ordination  in 
movements  that  are  as  irregular  as  they  are 


MOVEMENTS  THE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY.  G5 


abundant.  The  poor  little  creature  who  will 
never  manifest  any  intelligence  or  any  will 
shows  the  weakness  and  defects  of  his  nature 
from  the  first  years,  either  by  the  scarcity  or  by 
the  confused  excess  of  his  motions ; either  he 
does  not  stir,  is  sickly  and  dull,  seated  on  a chair 
or  lying  on  his  bed,  or — and  this  is  ordinarily  the 
case — he  gives  himself  up  to  a veritable  drunk- 
enness of  motion;  he  moves  without  truce  or  rest.* 
The  different  parts  of  the  machine,  deprived  of 
the  regulator,  fly  about  in  every  direction. 

Motions,  then,  possess  a real  psychological 
value ; but,  apart  from  their  importance,  they 
have  this  advantage  over  all  the  other  phenome- 
na of  the  child's  life,  that  they  are  apparent,  that 
they  come  directly  under  the  grasp  of  observa- 
tion. While  waiting  for  the  child  to  learn  to 
speak,  they  are,  as  Marion  says,  the  only  pos- 
sible signs  of  what  is  going  on  within  him."t 
There  is  interest,  then,  in  studying  them  at  the 
beginning,  since  it  is  through  the  movements  that 
we  are  able  to  reach  the  phenomena  of  the  inner 
life,  and  particularly  of  the  first  emotions.  These 
are  the  only  actions  of  the  child  that  teach  us 
what  he  is. 


* See  on  this  point  Dr.  Sollier’s  Psychologie  de  I’idiot  et 
de  Timbecile,  Paris,  Alcan,  1891,  p.  87 ; also  Romanes’s  Mental 
Evolution  in  Animals  (p.  178).  “ One  fact,”  he  says,  “ that  must 
strike  any  one  visiting  an  asylum  for  idiots  is  the  extraordinary 
character  and  variety  of  the  useless  and  thoughtless  movements 
one  sees  all  about  one.” 

f Revue  scientifique,  vol.  xvi,  p.  769  et  seq.,  Marion’s  article, 
Les  mouvements  de  I’enfant. 


66  the  development  of  the  child. 


Moreover,  we  are  not  to  occupy  ourselves  pri- 
marily with  the  material  mechanism  of  the  move- 
ments. It  is  the  business  of  the  anatomist  or  of 
the  physiologist  to  describe  the  organs  or  to  ex- 
plain the  functions  of  the  motor  faculty.  What 
comes  within  our  domain,  on  the  contrary,  is  the 
search  for  the  hidden  origins,  the  principles  of 
motion  — principles  sometimes  obscure,  in  any 
case  diverse,  but  whose  very  diversity  permits 
phenomena,  uniform  in  appearance,  to  be  classed 
in  a certain  number  of  distinct  categories.*  Mo- 
tions in  themselves,  indeed,  are  never  more  than 
a nervous  excitation  followed  by  a muscular 
contraction,  but  they  differ  greatly  as  to  their 
causes. 

In  the  psychology  of  the  fully  developed  man 
the  work  of  classifying  the  motions  seems  simple 
enough ; we  are  contented,  in  general,  with  dis- 
tinguishing two  great  classes : the  voluntary 
movements  and  those  that  are  not  voluntary, 
these  last  arising  in  almost  all  cases  from 
habit. 

In  the  case  of  the  child  there  can  be  no  doubt 
but  that  the  movements,  in  their  first  appearance, 

* Hartley,  who  was  the  first  to  attempt  a classification  of 
motions  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  mental  state  preceding 
them,  distinguished  only  two  lands  of  movements,  automatic 
and  voluntary — the  first  depending  on  sensations,  the  second  on 
ideas.  Hartley  did  not  recognise  automatic  movements,  that 
are  owing  to  impressions  not  felt.  Sensation  is  not  the  neces- 
sary antecedent  of  every  involuntary  motion.  And,  on  the  other 
hand,  automatic  movements  may  have  much  more  than  a sensa- 
tion as  their  condition — an  idea,  for  instance,  in  the  laugh  called 
forth  by  a comical  idea. 


MOVEMENTS  THE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY.  67 

are  all  involuntary  : no  idea^  no  intellectual  rep- 
resentation^ no  choice  concurs  in  producing  them. 
But  under  this  common  characteristic  the  diver- 
sities of  origin  appear.  There  are  different  forms 
of  the  involuntary  as  there  are  different  forms 
of  the  unconscious.  Among  the  motions  of  the 
child^  some  are  owing  to  an  excitation  from  with- 
out, to  an  impression,  we  dare  not  say  to  a sensa- 
tion ; we  shall  call  these  reflex  motions.*  The 
others  give  evidence,  on  the  contrary,  of  an  in- 
nate vitality,  an  inner  impetus ; these  are  spon- 
taneous motions.  But  these  spontaneous  move- 
ments in  their  turn  are  of  different  kinds : on  the 
one  hand  they  are  undetermined,  without  pur- 
pose, depending  only  on  an  automatic  activity; 
others,  on  the  contrary,  are  very  definite,  very 
co-ordinate,  show  deep  instincts,  needs  that  de- 
mand satisfaction  and  find  immediate  means  of 
obtaining  it;  whence  two  other  categories,  that 
of  purely  automatic  motions  and  that  of  instinc- 
tive movements. 

It  is  these  primary  classes  of  motion  that 

We  limit  intentionally  the  sense  of  the  word  “ reflex.’’ 
The  reflex  actions,  according  to  Bain,  are  characterized  by  the 
absence  of  the  distinguishing  feature  of  the  voluntary  actions 
— namely,  the  stimulus  of  a controlling  sentiment.  In  this 
sense  every  involuntary  action  would  be  reflex.  Littre  defines 
reflex  action  in  the  same  way  when  he  says  that  it  is  that  which, 
independently  of  the  will,  succeeds  either  sensations  or  uncon- 
scious phenomena  of  the  sensibility.  We  wish,  in  the  interest 
of  clearness,  to  limit  still  further  the  sense  of  the  word  reflex. 
We  shall  employ  it  to  designate  only  the  movements  that  are, 
as  it  were,  responses  of  the  organism  to  an  excitation  produced 
at  the  periphery,  and  resulting  from  an  external  cause. 

6 


G8  the  development  op  the  child. 


should  be  studied  in  the  beginning ; the  study  of 
voluntary  movements  * should  be  delayed,  since 
it  is  necessary  but  to  define  their  conditions  to 
understand  that  they  can  not  be  found  in  the 
beginnings  of  the  child^s  life.  The  voluntary 
movements,  indeed,  correspond  to  a much  more 
advanced  period  of  psychic  evolution,  since  they 
presuppose  in  very  different  degrees  the  intel- 
lectual representation  of  the  end  to  be  attained, 
as  well  as  that  of  the  action  suited  to  this  end. 
Preyer  determined  the  perfect  type  of  volun- 
tary movement  with  rigorous  precision  when  he 
brought  down  its  essential  conditions  to  four : 
first,  an  idea  which  precedes  it  and  its  cause; 
second,  the  preliminary  knowledge  of  the  move- 
ment to  be  accomplished  ; third,  a definite  end  ; 
fourth,  the  faculty  of  being  arrested,  inhibited,^^ 
by  other  ideas  at  the  moment  when  it  is  about  to 
be  accomplished,  f 


II. 

There  is  a natural  temptation  to  believe  that 
all  the  movements  of  the  newborn  child  are 
purely  and  simply  of  reflex  origin ; that  they  are 
always  provoked  by  a peripheric  excitation ; that 
the  little  child,  in  a word,  does  not  move  of  his 
own  accord,  but  that  he  is  moved,  so  to  speak,  by 
external  causes.  This  theory  may  flatter  the  pre- 
sumptions of  the  opponents  of  inneity,  innateness 


* See  Chapter  XII. 

t Preyer,  The  Senses  and  the  Will,  p.  192. 


MOVEMENTS  THE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY.  69 

or  inbornness,  but  it  is  contradicted  by  the  facts. 
There  is,  undoubtedly,  something  of  the  sponta- 
neous in  the  motor  activity  of  the  suckling.  Its 
acts  often  depend  upon  internal  causes,  and  the 
inneity  of  movements  is,  as  it  were,  the  prelude 
to  the  inneity  of  emotions.  Here,  as  every- 
where, outward  influences  must  be  considered, 
but  the  greatest  weight  must  assuredly  be 
placed  upon  the  action  from  within.  We  should 
be  able  to  account  for  only  a very  small  part 
of  the  child’s  motor  faculty  if  we  considered 
only  purely  reflex  motions.  The  excitation  of 
light,  for  instance,  which,  when  too  bright, 
wounds  the  delicacy  of  the  eye,  may  be  sufficient 
to  explain  the  fact  that  the  eyelids  close,  but 
it  does  not  explain  why  the  eyelids  open,  why 
the  muscles  of  the  eye,  when  the  organ  has 
acquired  strength  enough,  raise,  of  their  own 
accord,  the  curtain  that  has  hidden  from  the 
child  the  light  and  the  sight  of  things  about 
him. 

This  innate  activity,  this  natural  tendency  to 
motion,  shows  itself,  above  all,  before  we  come  to 
voluntary  motions,  in  the  definite,  regulated  mo- 
tions that  may  be  considered  instinctive  motions 
— the  act  of  sucking,  for  instance ; but  it  shows 
itself  also,  and  that  from  the  first  day,  in  a num- 
ber of  motions  which,  though  not  regular  nor 
determined  enough  to  be  attributed  to  veritable 
instincts,  are  at  the  same  time  too  spontaneous  to 
be  classed  with  purely  reflex  actions,  and  which 
testify  already,  in  their  way,  to  the  inner  energy. 
These  are  the  movements  which  Bain  calls  spon- 


70  the  development  of  the  child. 

taneous/^  * Preyer  impulsive/^  f and  which^  with 
Marion,  we  shall  call  automatic.'^'’ 

The  characteristic  of  automatic  movements  is 
that  they  forestall  all  sensation;  that  in  every 
case  they  are  produced  without  sensations ; that 
they  do  not  presuppose  in  any  way  a previous 
excitation  of  the  nerves  of  sight  or  of  the  other 
organs  of  the  senses ; that  they  arise  wholly  from 
the  depths  of  the  organism,  whose  energy  acts 
through  the  motor  nerves.  The  better  the  child^s 
health,  the  better  he  is  fed,  the  more  activity  he 
has  to  dispense,  the  more  numerous  will  these 
motions  be.  It  is  motions  of  this  kind  that  are 
produced  in  the  foetus,  in  concurrence  with  the 
reflex  motions  which  a touch  or  a pressure  may 
provoke.  It  is  easy  enough  to  recognise  them  in 
the  child,  and  to  distinguish  them  from  all  oth- 
ers ; they  have  no  distinct  purpose,  and  they  are 
not  co-ordinate.  Such  are  the  movements  of  the 
extension  and  bending  of  the  arms  and  legs — su- 
perfluous, luxurious  motions,  so  to  speak — which 
are  produced  incessantly,  even  when  the  child  is 
asleep.  From  the  very  first  day  we  see  the  child 
striking  his  face  with  his  hands  or  kicking  his 
feet  about.  One  might  be  tempted  to  assert  that 
these  are  but  the  first  awkward  gropings  of  an 


* Bain,  Senses  and  Intellect,  chap.  i.  Sully  calls  them  “ un- 
prompted and  random  movements.”  (Outlines  of  Psychology, 
p.  533.) 

f Preyer  says  that  the  impulsive  motions  are  distinguished 
from  all  others  by  the  fact  that  they  arc  produced  without  pre- 
vious peripheric  excitation,  and  that  their  cause  lies  exclusively 
in  the  organic  processes,  nutritive,  etc. 


MOVEMENTS  THE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY.  71 


instinctive  impulse  (for  instance^  in  the  cases 
cited,  of  the  instinct  of  prehension  and  of  walk- 
ing), the  instincts  themselves  not  tending  at 
first,  in  the  case  of  man  at  least,  to  a perfect  pre- 
cision in  the  actions  that  they  determine.  We 
believe,  however,  that  in  the  spontaneous  motor 
activity  of  the  child  there  is  something  more 
than  the  preparation  and  awkward  trial  of  the 
instinctive  activity.  There  is,  as  Bain  says,  the 
result  of  a too  copious  energy,  which  is  discharg- 
ing itself  for  the  first  time,  blindly  and  at  ran- 
dom.* There  is  the  breaking  out  of  a force 
which  has  not  yet  found  its  channel,  a current 
which  has  not  been  directed  into  canals. 

What  serves  to  corroborate  this  opinion  is 
that  these  random  movements,^^  as  Sully  has 
ingeniously  called  them,  do  not  disappear  with 
childhood.  Even  in  the  adult,  when  the  will 

* “ I look  upon  the  early  movements  of  infancy  as  in  great 
part  due  to  the  spontaneous  action  of  the  centres.  The  mobility 
displayed  in  the  first  stage  of  infant  existence  is  known  to 
be  very  great,  and  can  be  attributed  only  to  one  of  three  causes. 
It  may  arise  from  the  stimulus  of  sensation,  it  may  be  owing  to 
emotions,  or,  lastly,  the  cause  may  be  spontaneous  energy.  The 
two  first  named  infiuences — external  sensation  and  inward  emo- 
tion— are  undoubted  causes  of  active  gesticulation  and  move- 
ment, but  I do  not  believe  that  they  explain  the  whole  activity 
of  childhood.  If  there  be  times  of  active  gesticulation  and  ex- 
ercise that  show  no  connection  with  the  sights  or  sounds  or 
other  infiuences  of  the  outer  world,  and  that  have  no  peculiar 
emotional  character  of  the  pleasurable  or  painful  kind,  we  can 
ascribe  them  to  nothing  but  the  mere  abundance  and  exuber- 
ance of  self-acting  muscular  and  cerebral  energy,  which  rises 
and  falls  with  the  vigour  and  nourishment  of  the  general  sys- 
tem.” (Bain,  Senses  and  Intellect,  chap,  i.) 


72  the  development  of  the  child. 

and  habit  have  taken  possession  of  the  mus- 
cles, the  spontaneous  motor  faculty  still  exer- 
cises its  rights.  Let  us  glance  for  a moment  at 
our  ordinary  life,  and  we  shall  find  that  under 
the  impulse  of  organic  stimuli  we  give  ourselves 
up  to  numberless  motions  without  purpose  and 
definite  characteristics : we  extend  our  arms,  we 
fidget  in  our  seats,  we  stretch  our  legs,  and  these 
movements  have  nothing  in  common,  either  with 
the  actions  that  we  voluntarily  perform,  or  even 
with  any  muscular  habits  that  we  have  con- 
tracted. There  is  a multitude  of  parasitic  move- 
ments about  our  determined  and  willed  move- 
ments, just  as  we  find  a vegetation  of  weeds  about 
the  cultivated  plants  in  a field.  When  a child 
learns  to  write,  Lewes  has  observed,  it  is  impos- 
sible for  him  to  move  only  his  hands ; he  keeps 
his  tongue,  the  muscles  of  his  face,  and  even  his 
feet,  all  going  at  the  same  time.*  Time  and  the 
advance  of  age  will  diminish  these  useless  mo- 
tions, but  will  not  entirely  suppress  them.  It  is 
after  sleep,  above  all,  when  the  motor  forces  have 
been  refreshed  by  rest,  that  this  automatic  ges- 
ticulation is  particularly  active.  Is  it  not  natural 
that,  in  the  morning  of  life,  when  the  vitality  is 
in  its  prime,  and  when  the  governing  rules  of 
action  have  not  yet  imprisoned  the  muscles  in 
the  chains  of  habit,  the  motor  force  should  play 
spontaneously  and  freely  in  all  parts  of  the  mus- 
cular system  ? 

But  although  the  reflex  movements  are  not 


* Lewes,  Problems  of  the  Mind,  third  series,  p.  37. 


MOVEMENTS  THE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY.  73 

the  only  ones  produced,  they  have  nevertheless 
a great  importance  during  the  first  period.  As- 
sailed by  excitations  from  without,  the  little  be- 
ing finds  at  first  in  these  external  impressions 
only  an  occasion  for  a large  number  of  motions, 
where  later  he  is  to  gather  the  material  for  his 
ideas.  It  is  to  be  remarked,  however,  that  the 
refiex  operation,  however  mechanical  it  may  be, 
however  simple  it  may  appear,  is  not  as  easy  as 
the  impulsive  operation.  In  the  automatic  move- 
ments the  impulse  comes  from  the  motor  centres, 
and  spreads,  by  means  of  the  nerves,  to  the  mus- 
cles ; there  is,  so  to  speak,  only  one  current  of 
action,  there  is  only  one  descending  path  to 
travel.  In  the  reflex  motion  there  are  prelimi- 
naries ; an  impression  from  without  must  excite 
the  sensitive  nerves,  and  this  impression  ascends 
to  the  motor  centres,  whence  it  will  return  to 
follow  the  road  just  travelled.  In  other  words, 
as  Preyer  precisely  says,  a complete  series  of 
operations,  including  sensitive  impressions,  cen- 
tripetal, intercentral,  and  centrifugal  processes, 
is  necessary  in  order  that  the  motion  should  take 
place  under  these  conditions.  Note,  moreover, 
that  in  the  child,  at  least  during  the  first  days, 
the  impressions  from  without  are  somewhat  rare. 
If  the  reflex  action  is  relatively  weak,  slow,  slug- 
gish, it  is  not,  as  Dr.  Sikorski  afl&rms,  that  the 
irritability  of  the  motor  nerves  is  too  slight ; * it 
is  not,  as  Marion  claims,  that  the  vitality  is  less. 


* See  'Revue  philosophiqne,  vol.  xix,  p.  533,  article  by  Dr. 
Sikorski,  Le  developpement  psychique  de  Tenfant. 


74  the  development  op  the  child. 

nor  because  these  motions,  like  all  the  rest,  are 
perfected  by  habit ; it  is  rather,  we  believe,  that 
the  sensitive  nerves  are  still  dull,  the  sensibility 
hardly  born.  W e shall  see,  moreover,  that,  thanks 
to  this  torpor  of  the  sensibility,  the  child  is  not 
entirely  at  the  mercy  of  the  too  pressing  solicita- 
tions of  the  ontside  world,  but  is  protected,  as  it 
were,  from  the  brutality  of  an  abrupt  revelation 
of  the  sensible  world.*  In  proportion  as  the  sen- 
sibility is  developed  the  occasions  for  the  pro- 
duction of  reflex  action  will  multiply.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  development  of  the  sensibility 
will  result  in  the  progress  of  ideas,  and  the  prog- 
ress of  ideas,  in  its  turn,  will  tend  to  the  suppres- 
sion, to  the  annihilation,  of  reflex  motions,  which 
can  not  exist,  by  virtue  of  their  fatal  and  me- 
chanical character,  except  in  the  absence  of  ideas. 

There  are,  nevertheless,  numerous  and  impor- 
tant reflex  actions  in  the  case  of  the  newborn 
child.  Reflex  action,  as  we  shall  soon  see,  doubt- 
less plays  a part  even  in  the  development  of 
instinctive  motions  and  of  voluntary  motions 
themselves.  But  it  appears  alone  and  unalloyed 
in  phenomena  like  sneezing,  coughing,  hiccough, 
yawning,  crying,  and  even,  according  to  Darwin 
— who,  however,  is  deceived  on  this  point — in  the 
action  of  sucking,  f 

Sneezing,  which  is  often  the  child^s  first  act 
on  his  entrance  to  the  world,  presents  the  type  of 

* See  Chapter  III. 

f “ During  the  first  seven  days  my  child  performed  several 
reflex  actions,  such  as  sneezing,  hiccough,  yawning,  stretching, 
and,  naturally,  sitckiyuj  and  crying.’* 


MOVEMENTS  THE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY.  75 

reflex  action  in  all  its  purity ; it  is  but  the  imme- 
diate reply  of  the  challenged  organism.  It  is 
determined  mechanically  in  the  infant  by  an  im- 
pression of  cold,  by  the  abrupt  invasion  of  the 
lungs  by  the  air.  Later  it  may  result  from  very 
different  causes.  On  the  thirty  - eighth  day/^ 
says  Preyer,  I saw  sneezing  produced  by  some 
drops  of  lukewarm  water  that  trickled  over  the 
forehead ; on  the  forty-third  day  I saw  that  par- 
ticles of  witchmeal  caused  sneezing ; on  the  one 
hundred  and  seventieth  day  mere  blowing  on  the 
child  had  the  same  effect.  Adults  do  not  readily 
show  such  sensibility.'’^’  * 

Another  very  clear  example  of  reflex  action  is 
cited  by  Darwin  : The  seventh  day  I touched 

the  sole  of  Doddy^s  foot  with  a piece  of  paper ; 
he  quickly  withdrew  his  foot,  and  at  the  same 
time  bent  his  toes,  as  a much  older  child  does 
when  being  tickled.^^ 

There  are  still  other  motions  that  should  be 
considered  reflex : first,  to  be  sure,  a great  part 
of  those  connected  with  the  operations  of  the 
organic  life  (the  rest  being  attributed  to  instinc- 
tive impulses),  which  depend  either  upon  the  mus- 
cles called  involuntary  in  physiology,  as  the 
motions  of  circulation  or  of  the  digestive  organs ; 
or  upon  the  voluntary  muscles,  as  the  motions  of 
respiration ; and  also  the  motions  which  come 
nearer  to  the  mental  life — the  winking  of  the  eye 
to  protect  the  eye  from  too  bright  a light,  the 
contraction  of  the  limbs  to  escape  a painful  con- 


Preyer,  the  Senses  and  the  Will,  p.  214. 


76  the  development  of  the  child. 


tact,  turning  of  the  head  to  avoid  a knock  or  a 
blow.* 

Reflex  actions  in  their  original  simplicity 
have  no  psychic  antejcedent  unless  one  wishes  to 
consider  as  such  the  obscure  and  unconscious 
excitation  of  the  sensitive  nerves,  which  is  still 
only  an  impression  and  not  a sensation,  still  less 
a perception.  But  when  the  sensibility  has  in- 
creased, when  the  organs  acted  upon  give  birth 
to  agreeable  or  disagreeable  sensations,  the  reflex 
act,  although  always  involuntary  and  mechan- 
ical, and,  so  to  speak,  inevitable,  may  succeed  a 


* I add  two  examples  of  automatic  motion  observed  by  Binet 
in  little  girls  six  and  eight  months  old  : ‘‘  When  the  child  had 
her  hand  open,  one  could  make  her  contract  her  fingers  and 
close  her  hand  by  scratching  the  palm  of  the  hand  very  lightly ; 
while,  if  her  hand  was  closed,  a slight  mechanical  excitation  on 
the  back  of  the  hand  would  make  her  extend  her  fingers  very 
quickly.  This  little  experiment  succeeded  under  the  most  vary- 
ing conditions,  whether  the  child  was  awake  or  asleep,  whether 
she  was  attentive  to  what  was  going  on  about  her  or  whether 
her  attention  was  otherwise  occupied.  A second  example  of 
automatism  is  the  facility  with  which  one  can  cause  co-ordinate 
motions  in  a child  whose  attention  is  otherwise  occupied,  of 
which  he  himself  is  unconscious.  I have  seen  this  very  often 
in  little  girls,  and  add  an  example  selected  from  several.  A 
little  girl  eight  months  old  was  looking  attentively  at  a lady  who 
was  smiling  at  her ; her  hand  was  open  with  its  palm  downward. 
A small  object,  as  a key  or  a ruler,  was  slipped  into  the  palm  of 
her  hand.  The  child,  occupied  elsewhere,  did  not  seem  to  per- 
ceive anything,  but  her  little  fingers  tightened  about  the  object ; 
they  were  pressed  tightly  together  and  held  the  object  for  some 
time — several  minutes,  perhaps  ; then  the  hand  opened,  quickly 
or  slowly,  and  the  object  fell  to  the  floor,  without  the  child’s 
having  suspected  anything.” 


MOVEMENTS  THE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY.  77 

feeling  of  pleasure  or  of  pain,  a vague  conscious- 
ness of  a danger  dreaded  or  an  advantage  sought. 
If  a ray  of  the  sun  strikes  the  child's  head  and 
makes  it  too  warm  as  he  is  seated  at  his  desk 
plunged  in  his  lessons,  he  will  change  his  position 
so  that  he  may  be  in  the  shade  ; in  the  same  way, 
if  the  cold  affects  his  legs,  he  will  draw  them 
closer  together  to  warm  them. 

There  are  degrees  to  distinguish,  then,  in  the 
reflex  operations,  and  it  is  certain  that  the  parts 
of  the  nervous  system  employed  in  motions  of 
this  kind  are  not  always  the  same.  Bain  thinks 
that  some,  the  most  rudimentary,  are  carried  on 
by  the  system  of  nerves  and  sympathetic  gan- 
glions ; others,  by  the  spinal  cord  or  the  medulla 
oblongata ; others,  finally,  by  higher  centres  of 
the  cerebro-spinal  system,  as  the  mesocephalon 
and  corpora  quadrigemina.* *  It  is  hardly  pos- 
sible, in  the  present  state  of  physiological  re- 
search, to  arrive  at  an  absolute  decision  on  this 
point.  But,  although  we  agree  with  Virchow  f 
in  admitting  that  the  newborn  child,  in  the  first 
moments  of  his  existence,  is  a purely  spinal  being, 
and  that  his  activity  is  placed  under  the  control 
of  the  spinal  cord,  it  is  not  less  probable  that 
the  brain  very  soon  plays  a part  in  the  produc- 
tion of  reflex  motions,  t 

* Bain,  Senses  and  Intellect,  p.  240. 

• t This  is  the  opinion  of  Ribot  also,  Les  maladies  de  la  vo- 
lonte,  p.  5. 

X Automatism  was  for  a long  time  considered  as  belonging 
exclusively  to  the  spinal  cord  and  to  the  secondary  nervous 
centres.  But  the  works  of  Dr.  Carpenter  and  of  Dr.  Laycok 


78  the  development  op  the  child. 

What  is  certain^  in  any  case,  is  that,  in  spite 
of  the  apparent  analogies,  there  can  be  no  possi- 
bility of  confusing  even  the  simplest  reflex  act 
with  the  purely  mechanical  motions  which  are 
sometimes  produced  in  certain  species  in  the 
vegetable  kingdom.  There  is,  doubtless,  some 
resemblance  between  the  action  of  the  newborn 
child  in  sneezing  or  winking  and  the  trembling 
of  the  sensitive  plant,  which  folds  its  leaves  at 
the  slightest  touch.  The  child  when  closing  his 
Angers  about  objects  placed  in  his  hand  may  be 
compared  to  the  catchfly  plant,  which  closes  its 
blossoms  as  soon  as  an  insect  lights  upon  them. 
But  there  is  here  only  material  for  comparison, 
and  the  most  elementary  reflex  motion  presup- 
poses something  altogether  different  from  the 
simple  contractility  of  the  tissues  ; it  comes  from 
a pre-established  harmony,  from  a consensus  of 
the  different  parts  of  the  nervous  system ; it 
throws  a veritable  organism  into  play,  and  this 
may  be  proved  by  the  phenomenon  described  by 
Preyer,  of  the  irradiation  of  the  reflex  motions 
— that  is  to  say,  the  concomitant  motions  which, 
for  example,  accompany  tickling  and  sneezing. 

III. 

Whatever  certain  physiologists  say  on  this 
point — Vulpian,  for  instance,* *  who  asks,  without 

have  established  the  fact  that  the  brain  also  possesses  an  auto- 
matic activity  peculiar  to  itself,  which  they  have  designated  by 
the  name  of  “unconscious  cerebration,”  or  the  “ preconscious 
activity  of  the  soul.”  (Kibot,  ITlercdite,  p.  313.) 

* Vulpian,  Physiologic  du  systeme  nerveux,  p.  194. 


MOVEMENTS  TEE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY.  79 

attempting  to  hide  his  perplexity.  Where  do  the 
sensitive  reflex  motor  actions  end  ? where  do 
the  instinctive  phenomena  begin  ? — the  motions 
attributable  to  instinct  are  recognised  by  very 
precise  characteristics.  They  are  distinguished 
from  automatic  motions  in  that  they  are  co- 
ordinate and  tend  manifestly  to  a definite  end ; 
and  from  reflex  motions,  in  that  they  have  their 
origin  not  in  a superficial  excitation  from  with- 
out, but  in  the  very  depths  of  our  being,  in  the 
hereditary  habits  or  the  innate  tendencies  of  hu- 
man nature.  Long  before  the  personal  will  has 
appeared  and  laid  hold  of  the  muscles,  to  subject 
them  to  an  intentional  direction,  instinct  has  es- 
tablished regularity  in  the  child's  motions.  How- 
ever involuntary  and  thoughtless  the  instinct 
may  be  in  itself,  it  is  already  a co-ordinating 
power,  a regulating  agent,  whether  we  consider 
it  as  the  resultant  of  all  the  accumulated  wills 
of  past  generations,  or  whether  we  see  in  it  the 
direct  effect  of  the  far-seeing  will  of  Nature. 

In  the  study  of  the  instincts  of  childhood  we 
must  be  careful  to  avoid  the  extremes  both  of 
those  who  see  instinct  everywhere  and  of  those 
who  hardly  see  it  at  all.  Perez,  for  instance, 
claims  that  sneezing  can  not  be  separated  from 
instinct " ; * there  would  be,  then,  if  not  a god, 
as  with  the  ancients,  at  least  an  instinct  of  sneez- 
ing. Rabier,  on  the  other  hand,  declares  that 


* “ One  of  the  first  refiex  actions  to  notice  in  the  child,  and 
one  which  seems  to  be  hardly  separable  from  instinct,  is  sneez- 
ing.” (Perez,  Les  trois  premieres  annees  dc  I’enfant.) 


80  the  development  of  the  child. 


instinct  hardly  exists  at  all  in  man.*  The  dis- 
agreement arises  from  an  equivocal  definition  of 
instinct.  In  the  eyes  of  Rabier,  indeed,  instinnt 
would  always  presuppose  intellectual  representa- 
tions as  conditions  and  antecedents,  a series  of 
images  following  one  another  in  the  conscious- 
ness.^^ We  believe,  on  the  contrary,  that  instinct 
in  its  original  form  is  absolutely  blind,  not  only 
because  it  does  not  know  its  end,  but  because  it 
is  ignorant  of  itself.  As  soon  as  intellectual  rep- 
resentations are  possible  and  consciousness  has 
appeared  the  instinctive  action  in  the  case  of 
man  gives  place  to  desire,  and  desire  journeys 
on,  little  by  little,  to  will.f  Rabier  is  wrong,  un- 
less he  means  to  speak  of  the  adult  only,  in  whom 
reason  and  habit  have  caused  the  impulses  of  the 
animal  nature  to  almost  entirely  disappear ; but 
in  the  child,  in  so  many  ways  but  a little  animal, 
instinct  is  unquestionably  the  origin  of  a large 
number  of  actions.  J 


* Rabier,  Psychologic,  p.  666. 

t “ If  a feeling  of  an  emotional  order,  known  by  the  name  of 
desire,  comes  between  a sensation  or  an  idea  and  the  motion  it 
may  evoke,  this  motion  has  a right  to  the  title  of  voluntary  mo- 
tion.’’ (Charlton  Bastian,  Le  cerveau  organe  de  la  pensee,  vol. 
ii,  p.  171.) 

t Compare  what  Maine  de  Biran  says,  in  the  introduction  to 
his  Anthropologic,  on  the  characteristics  of  life  in  its  begin- 
nings : “ This  purely  sensitive  existence,  these  overpowering 
appetites,  these  blind  inclinations,  anterior  to  all  experience,  in 
fine,  this  ensemble  of  determinations  and  of  automatic  motions, 
which  manifest  themselves  at  the  beginning  of  existence  and 
even  before  the  birth  of  the  individual,  may  be  included  under 
the  name  of  instinct,  or  the  sensitive  principle — vague  title, 


MOVEMENTS  TJIE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY  81 


In  describing  the  nature  of  instinctive  mo- 
tions let  us  take  the  action  of  sucking  as  an  ex- 
ample.* * Bain  states  that  the  act  of  sucking  is  a 
reflex  act,  which  transforms  itself  into  a volun- 
tary act.f  But  the  first  part  of  his  statement  is 
inexact,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  in  this 
essential  operation  of  life — nutrition — on  which 
the  child’s  existence  depends,  there  is  something 
more  than  a motion  resulting  from  an  external 
•excitation.  The  best  proof  that  can  be  given  of 
this  is,  that,  however  eager  to  nurse  the  child  may 
be  when  he  is  hungry,  he  is  as  strongly  disposed 
to  repel  his  mother’s  breast  or  the  bottle  if  he  is 
satisfied.  Doubtless  the  presentation  of  the  ob- 
ject is  necessary  at  first,  in  order  that  the  child 
may  satisfy  his  instinct ; but  it  is  not  sufficient 
to  cause  the  motion  to  continue  after  the  inner 
need,  the  real  cause,  has  disappeared.  The  in- 
stinct, then,  is  pre-existent  to  the  external  excita- 
tion, since  the  motion  does  not  continue  although 
this  excitation  is  still  going  on.  Must  we  go  still 
further,  and  accept  the  testimony  of  certain  ob- 
servers who  claim  that  the  child  shows  his  in- 


doubtless, as  expressing  the  force  acting  within  the  organism, 
a blind  force,  ignorant  of  itself  even  in  its  most  powerful 
action.” 

* “ The  nursing  child  does  not  reason  about  it  when  he  ad- 
justs his  lips  and  his  tongue  in  the  way  best  calculated  to  draw 
the  milk  from  his  mother’s  breast.”  (Bossuet,  Connaissance  de 
Dieu  et  de  soi-meme,  v,  3. 

f Senses  and  Intellect,  p.  217.  To  be  sure,  we  employ  the 
word  “ reflex  ” simply  as  a synonym  of  an  action  provoked  by 
an  external  excitation. 


82  the  development  of  the  child. 


stinct  of  sucking,  apart  from  any  solicitation 
that  excites  it.  Espinas  is  of  this  opinion,  and 
he  thinks  that  he  has  observed  that  the  child 
subjected  to  his  experiments,  from  the  very  first 
day  of  his  life,  stretched  his  head,  in  yawning, 
toward  the  breast  of  the  person  holding  him,  try- 
ing, doubtless,  to  nurse  ; the  same  movement  of 
the  head  toward  the  breast  was  observed  in  the 
same  child  on  the  fourteenth  day,  although  he 
was  fed  by  a bottle.  Leaving  out  of  account 
the  fact  that  the  motions  referred  to  might  have 
been  caused  by  the  sense  of  smell,  it  seems  to  us 
that  Espinas^s  observations  ought  to  be  repeated 
and  verified ; it  may  be  that  casual  or  chance 
motions  have  been  confused  with  instinctive 
motions.  In  any  case  it  is  not  necessary  that  they 
should  be  proved  in  order  to  show  the  instinctive 
character  of  sucking.  In  animals,  also,  a decided 
instinct  demands  that  they  shall  act  upon  the 
impressions  which  excite  it.  Marion  tells  us  that 
a little  chicken  does  not  scratch  with  his  feet 
when  he  is  placed  upon  a carpet ; but  he  begins 
it  immediately  upon  being  placed  on  the  gravel, 
as  if  the  sensation  caused  by  the  grains  of  sand 
were  necessary  and  sufficient  to  put  the  mechan- 
ism in  motion. 

The  complicated  acts  involved  in  sucking  are 
accomplished  from  the  very  first  moment  with 
remarkable  precision,  and,  as  Bossuet  says,  in 
the  manner  best  calculated  to  draw  the  milk 


* Observations  sur  un  nouveau-ne,  in  the  Annales  de  la  Fa- 
culto  des  lettres  de  Bordeaux,  1883,  p.  383. 


MOVEMENTS  THE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY.  83 

from  the  breast.^^  Preyer,  who  does  not  wait 
until  the  child  is  fairly  in  the  world  to  begin 
his  experiments  and  observations,  recounts  the 
following  instance  : In  December,  1870,  three 

minutes  after  the  appearance  of  the  head — the 
child  cried  weakly  as  soon  as  the  mouth  was  free 
— I touched  the  child^s  tongue  ; I passed  the  end 
of  my  finger  back  and  forth  over  the  surface  of 
the  organ ; the  child  stopped  crying  immediately 
and  began  to  suck  my  finger  with  great  energy. 
Will  any  one  contest  the  instinctive  character  of 
sucking  by  urging  the  fact  (and  it  is  undoubtedly 
a fact)  that  the  child  does  not  always  immediate- 
ly succeed  in  grasping  the  mother's  nipple  ; that 
it  is  sometimes  necessary  to  aid  him  in  it  ?"  But 
these  hesitations  of  the  first  hour  of  life  are  met 
with  in  animals  also.  Moreover,  they  result,  as 
we  have  already  said,  from  the  insufficiency  of 
the  child's  organs,  or  from  the  difficulties  of 
adaptation  to  the  other  organs.  The  defects  of 
an  abnormal  organism,  in  children  particularly 
weak  and  sickly,  could  prove  nothing  against 
the  reality  of  instinct,  of  which  that  organism 
is  but  the  instrument.  In  a few  days,  moreover, 
all  is  regulated ; every  trace  of  hesitation  has 
disappeared,  and  the  motion  is  executed  with 
perfect  mechanical  regularity.  It  is  so,  at  least, 
with  normal  children.  In  one  sense  the  future 
intelligence,  hard  as  it  may  be  to  believe  it, 
shows  itself  in  the  way  in  which  the  child  sucks. 
Indeed,  a real  difficulty  in  sucking  has  been  ob- 
served in  idiots  from  birth  : Every  time  the 

breast  is  presented  to  them  it  seems  to  be  a new 
7 


84  the  development  op  the  child. 


thing  to  them,  and  each  new  experience  does  not 
unite  with  the  preceding  in  determining  an  idea, 
however  unconscious  it  may  he.'^  * 

The  force  of  instinct,  in  its  blind  and  mechan- 
ical character,  shows  itself  in  the  fact  that  the 
child  sucks  anything  that  is  offered  him  — a 
finger,  a rag  doll,  any  object  whatever — as  soon 
as  it  is  placed  in  contact  with  his  tongue  and  his 
lips.  Preyer  gives  an  account  of  the  custom  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Thuringia,  who  keep  their 
children  quiet  by  letting  them  suck  an  empty 
rubber  bottle  for  hours  at  a time.  Although 
sucking,  in  this  case,  does  not  produce  the  effect 
intended  by  Nature,  that  of  nourishment,  still 
the  motion  is  prolonged.  We  may  compare  with 
this  fact  the  observations  of  a Parisian  physi- 
cian, who  affirms  that  the  newborn  child  meas- 
ures his  degree  of  satiety  not  by  the  quantity  of 
milk  that  he  has  absorbed,  but  by  the  sensation 
of  fatigue  which  sucking  produces  ; when  he  has 
made  the  motion  with  his  lips  for  a few  minutes, 
he  believes  that  he  is  satisfied,  even  if  very  little 
milk  has  come.  Many  bad  nurses  deceive  them- 
selves in  this  way.f 

After  having  established  the  blind,  mechan- 
ical character  of  the  motions  of  the  sucking 
child,  we  must  hasten  to  observe  that  the  phe- 
nomena change  very  rapidly,  consciousness  shows 
itself,  and  the  child  soon  begins  to  seek  his 


* Psychologie  de  I’idiot  et  de  Timbecile,  p.  44. 
f Dr.  Horace  Bianchon,  Causerie  medicale,  in  the  Journal  Le 
Temps  for  February  23,  1891. 


MOVEMENTS  THE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY.  85 


mother’s  breast,  no  longer  under  the  rule  of 
an  obscure  instinct,  but  with  a remembrance  of 
the  pleasure  he  has  already  experienced,  the  de- 
sire to  find  this  pleasure  again,  and  the  vague 
representation  of  the  motions  about  to  be  per- 
formed again  in  order  to  satisfy  the  needs  of 
nutrition.  The  phenomena  of  the  child  are  con- 
tinually modified  in  character.  We  have  no 
sooner  defined  a passing  condition  of  his  mobile 
nature,  always  on  the  path  of  development,  than 
we  must  hasten,  if  we  would  be  exact,  to  describe 
a different  condition  if  not  an  opposing  one.  The 
child  is  like  a book  whose  pages  are  being  con- 
tinually turned  over,  one  after  the  other,  with  no 
chance  of  our  being  allowed  to  stop  in  our  read- 
ing. To-day  he  is  not  what  he  was  yesterday. 
His  actions,  which  seemed  at  first  to  be  uni- 
form, always  the  same  in  reality,  are  constantly 
transforming  themselves,  and  their  appearance 
changes,  too,  to  the  careful  observer. 

Everything  is  mingled  in  the  child — the  re- 
mains of  the  aniinal  life  and  the  beginnings  of 
the  intelligent  life.  Then  too,  however  disposed 
we  may  be  to  see  the  effect  of  instinct  in  the  act 
of  sucking,  we  are  forced  to  admit  that  the  reflex 
operations  have  their  part  there  too ; the  act  of 
closing  and  tightening  the  lips  about  the  nipple 
is  purely  reflex,  excited  by  simple  contact.  And 
in  the  same  way,  although  we  feel  certain  that 
no  antecedent,  neither  a sensation  of  hunger  nor 
any  idea  whatever  has  preceded  the  child^s  first 
motion  toward  his  mother’s  breast,  there  is  no 
doubt  but  that  the  child,  a short  time  after  birth. 


86  the  development  of  the  child. 

having  from  this  time  on  a conscionsness  of  what 
he  does  when  he  nurses,  is  no  longer  under  the 
exclusive  domination  of  instinct.  He  does  not 
act  voluntarily  yet,  but  the  desire,  the  wish,  to 
obtain  again  that  which  has  been  given  him  so 
many  times,  directs  and  urges  his  motions.  He 
already  knows  this  semi- will,  which  implies,  if 
not  the  choice  between  several  actions,  at  least 
the  conscious  pursuit  of  a known  end.  As  proof 
of  this  the  presence  of  the  nurse  excites  a desire : 
the  child,  who  had  no  idea  of  wanting  to  nurse  a 
few  moments  before,  demands  the  breast  with 
impatience  as  soon  as  he  sees  the  person  that 
nurses  him. 

Contemporary  psychologists  have  brought  to 
light  this  law,  namely,  that  every  state  of  con- 
sciousness tends  to  express  itself  to  the  outside 
world  by  movements.  In  the  child,  and  in  the 
original  evolution  of  our  faculties,  it  is,  on  the 
contrary,  the  movement  that  precedes  the  con- 
sciousness ; * it  is  the  repetition  of  the  uncon- 
scious motor  phenomenon  that  seems  to  call  forth 
the  conscious  state,  emotion,  desire,  and,  later,  will. 
It  certainly  is  not  until  after  he  has  taken  the 
breast  mechanically  several  times  that  the  suck- 
ing child  becomes  conscious  of  the  motion  he  is 
performing.  The  mechanical  life  precedes  and 
prepares  the  way  for  the  conscious  life.f  At  first 

* We  understand  by  this,  either  the  knowledge  of  the  act  at 
the  moment  when  it  is  produced,  or  the  faculty  of  representing 
it  to  the  self  before  it  is  produced. 

t Compare  Marillicr’s  article  in  the  Revue  scientifique  (1890, 
p.  398)  on  Les  Phenomenes  moteurs  et  la  volonte,  in  which  ho 


MOVEMENTS  TEE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY.  87 

sight  children  seem  to  act  as  though  they  desired 
and  willed,  and  it  is  not  until  after  they  have 
IX3iietrated  through  these  disguises  of  instinct 
that  they  arrive  at  the  reality  of  desire  and  of  will. 
It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  some  of  the  child^s 
involuntary  motions  are  conscious,  some  uncon- 
scious : the  truth  is,  there  are  degrees  of  con- 
sciousness ; there  are  subconscious  states,  semi- 
conscious states,  which  hover,  so  to  speak,  be- 
tween darkness  and  light. 

The  study  of  the  other  instincts  of  the  child 
reveals  the  same  complexity,  and  the  interven- 
tion of  the  different  principles  of  activity  pe- 
culiar to  man.  Habit  itself,  however  unexpected 
it  may  be,  in  a being  only  beginning  to  live,  loses 
no  time  in  playing  its  part  in  the  direction  of  the 
motor  faculty.  We  have  seen  that  in  the  general 
attitude  of  his  bod}^,  in  the  position  which  his 
legs  and  his  feet  take,  and  also  in  the  motion  of 
putting  his  hands  to  his  face,  the  child  simply 
repeats  motions  which  were  performed  in  the 
intra-uterine  life.  In  the  same  way  the  new  ac- 
tion performed  under  the  guidance  of  instinct 
may  become  habit  also.  It  is  not  at  all  necessary 
that  will  should  have  presided  at  the  first  mani- 
festation of  a movement  in  order  that  it  should 
be  produced  by  habit.  Every  action,  voluntary 
or  involuntary,  produced  once  by  any  cause  what- 
ever, tends  to  repeat  itself,  to  renew  itself  uncon- 
sciously. It  is  not  rare  to  observe  ridiculous 


says,  “ The  evolution  of  the  motor  phenomena  precedes  that  of 
representations.” 


88  the  development  of  the  child. 

habits  in  babies  as  well  as  in  old  men,  little  mns- 
cular  twitchings,  which  it  is  difficult  to  correct  if 
allowed  to  become  really  habitual.  The  obser- 
vations made  on  idiots,  the  jer kings,  the  endless 
grimaces  noticed  in  them,  show  us,  as  in  a mag- 
nifying mirror,  the  character  of  these  motions  of 
habit,  which,  in  the  normal  child,  will  be  re- 
pressed by  the  action  of  intelligence  and  of  the 
nascent  will,  but  which  persist  in  perpetuating 
themselves  when  Nature  allows  the  ^^part  of  man, 
by  virtue  of  which  he  is  a machine,'^  to  rule. 

IV. 

The  foregoing  analyses  will  help  us  to  find  our 
way  in  the  midst  of  the  many  and  varied  motions 
which  constitute  almost  exclusively  the  child^s 
activity  during  the  first  months.  Later,  in  the 
adult,  the  inner  life  up  to  a certain  point  will  be 
sufficient  to  itself.  We  shall  live  within  our- 
selves. Our  refiections,  our  cares,  will  absorb 
our  activity,  and  they  will  not  always  express 
themselves  to  the  world  without.  Language, 
moreover,  will  be  the  regular  instrument  in  sat- 
isfying the  need  we  feel  for  communication  with 
others,  the  stream  in  which  our  feelings  and 
thoughts  will  flow  out.  But  how  shall  the  child, 
who  does  not  think,  who  does  not  talk,  occupy 
his  time  during  the  long  waking  hours  increas- 
ing day  by  day,  if  he  does  not  move  ? Sense-per- 
ception, sensation  at  least,  will  doubtless  occupy 
him  more  and  more  as  time  goes  on.  But  this 
very  activity  of  the  senses  is  accompanied  by 


MOVEMENTS  THE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY.  89 


motions.  There  are  many  movements  without 
an  idea  in  the  child,  but  there  is  no  idea — that  is 
to  say,  of  perception  or  of  sensation — without  a 
movement. 

Let  us  see,  then,  without  pretending  to  analyze 
them  all,  in  what  category  the  manifestations  of 
the  motor  faculty,  of  which  we  have  not  yet 
spoken,  can  be  placed.  Perhaps  the  conclusion 
drawn  from  our  examination  will  be  that  they 
all  share,  more  or  less,  in  the  different  types 
which  we  have  outlined. 

Crying,  with  which  the  child  enters  the  world, 
and  of  which  there  will  be  trouble  in  breaking 
him,  is  represented  by  Preyer  as  being  purely  re- 
flex. There  is,  assuredly,  no  longer  question  of 
giving  it  moral  signiflcance,  of  seeing  in  it  with 
too  poetical  writers,  or  even  with  too  symbolical 
philosophers,  the  wail  of  a creature  cast  into 
the  world  only  to  suffer  there.  Even  Kant  did 
not  escape  this  illusion.  According  to  his  the- 
ories, the  cry  of  the  newborn  child  should  be  a 
sign  of  irritation  and  of  anger.  It  is  not  that 
he  suffers,^^  he  said,  ^^but  that  something  dis- 
pleases him  ; doubtless  he  would  like  to  move 
his  legs,  and  he  feels  his  powerlessness  as  he 
would  feel  a chain  that  hindered  his  liberty. 
What  could  have  been  Nature^s  purpose  in  doom- 
ing him  to  utter  cries,  which,  by  their  very  na- 


* Kant  varied  in  his  interpretation  of  cries.  Sometimes  he 
seems  to  see  in  them  only  a mechanical  phenomenon.  “ Chil- 
dren aid  in  the  unfolding  of  the  inner  parts  of  their  bodies  by 
crying.  Consequently  one  does  them  a bad  turn  by  trying  to 
quiet  them  as  soon  as  they  begin  to  cry.”  (Traite  de  pedagogie, 


90  the  development  op  the  child. 


ture,  would  be  most  dangerous  to  the  mother  and 
to  himself  ? And  he  adds  elsewhere,  If  an  ani- 
mal should  cry,  as  children  do,  upon  coming  into 
the  world,  it  would  inevitably  become  the  prey 
of  wolves  and  of  the  other  wild  animals  that 
would  be  attracted  by  its  cries.'’^  We  willingly 
grant  to  Kant  that  the  purpose  of  Nature  in 
this  case  is  obscure  enough,  and  that  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  discuss  the  utility  of  the  first  cries.  But 
we  can  not  agree  with  him  in  interpreting  them 
as  the  expressive  signs  of  the  discontent  of  a 
weak  being  railing  at  his  own  weakness.  Should 
we,  on  the  other  hand,  adopt  Preyer^s  view,  and 
consider  them  as  simply  respiratory  reflex  actions, 
caused  by  cooling  the  skin  or  by  any  other  dis- 
agreeable impression  ? We  believe  that  there  is 
something  more  in  the  prolonged  cries,  which 
cease  only  to  begin  again,  and  which  are  surely 
out  of  all  proportion  to  the  impressions  of  suffer- 
ing that  a child  could  feel.  They  are  sponta- 
neous, and  in  a great  measure  automatic.  They 
arise  in  the  newborn  child  from  a general  need 
of  action,  and  perhaps  also  from  a particular 
need  of  testifying  to  his  existence,  although  they 
are  lacking,  not  only  in  intentional  significance, 
but  also  at  first  in  consciousness.  And  when  by 
frequent  repetition,  and  by  virtue  of  the  gen- 
eral progress  of  the  nervous  system,  they  have 
become  conscious  of  themselves,  they  are  so  far 

Education  physique.)  Elsewhere  he  says  : “ When  the  child  is 
capable  of  laughing  and  of  crying,  he  cries  with  reflection,  how- 
ever obscure  this  reflection  may  be.  He  thinks  that  something 
is  going  to  hurt  him.” 


MOVEMENTS  THE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY.  91 


from  expressing  a feeling  of  weakness,  as  Kant 
thought,  that  they  become  rather  the  natural 
manifestation  of  a feeling  of  strength.  The 
child  often  finds  pleasure  in  crying.  Disagree- 
able as  they  are  for  everybody  except  himself, 
the  cries  form  a part  of  the  great  ensemble  of 
natural  signs,  various  sounds  of  the  voice,  little 
grunts,  murmurs,  and  prattlings,  which  are  the 
preludes  to  language  : simple  vocal  gesticulation 
in  the  beginning,  while  waiting  for  the  time  for 
them  to  become  signs  of  appeal  when  our  intelli- 
gence shall  have  comprehended  of  what  use  they 
can  be. 

The  smile,  the  laugh,  we  shall  see  elsewhere, 
are  only  automatic  motions  before  becoming  the 
definite  expression  of  a feeling  of  pleasure  or  of 
affection.  Tears  are  the  same.  Sobs  and  sighs, 
which  appear  early,  have  at  first  no  expressive 
import.*  This  can  not  be  too  strongly  insisted 
upon : it  is  a general  law  that  the  child^s  activity 
up  to  the  age  of  four  or  five  months  gives  no  evi- 
dence of  a real  moral  sense,  still  less  of  the  inten- 
tional or  willed.  The  reflex  mechanism,  auto- 
matic or  instinctive,  is  organized  at  the  outset ; 
thoughts  and  will  take  possession  of  it  later. 

Grasping  the  nipple  with  the  lips  is  a matter 
of  instinct ; taking  hold  of  an  object  with  the 


* We  do  not  take  time  to  consider  certain  motions,  frequently 
produced  in  the  child,  pure  reflex  motions,  which  have  no  psy- 
chological value  — snoring,  yawning,  hiccough,  etc. ; nor  the 
respiratory  motions,  which  result  from  a purely  psychical  func- 
tion. As  to  the  motions  that  accompany  the  exercise  of  the 
senses,  see  Chapters  III  and  IV. 


92  the  development  of  the  child. 


hands,  to  seize  it  and  to  feel  it,  is  also  an  instinct- 
ive act.  Prehension — which  is  such  an  important 
faculty  in  man,  and  which  will  be,  later,  in  the 
complication  of  the  motions  that  it  demands,  the 
supple  instrument  of  the  will  and  of  habit — is  per- 
formed spontaneously  in  the  beginning.  Mme. 
Necker  de  Saussure  was  mistaken  when  she 
wrote : More  than  five  months  pass  before  the 

child  has  an  idea  of  making  use  of  his  hands ; 
their  use  is  unknown  to  him  for  a long  time ; 
and  the  extreme  slowness  with  which  he  begins 
to  divine  it  proves  that  this  discovery  is  the 
gradual  work  of  experience.^^  * Long  before  five 
months,  even  from  the  first  days,  the  child  presses 
his  mothers  breast  with  his  hands  when  nursing, 
as  though  to  keep  it  there.  The  child  observed 
by  Espinas  thrust  the  bottle  against  his  mouth 
with  the  backs  of  his  hands,  and  sometimes,  too, 
with  his  fingers.  The  awkward  first  gropings  of 
prehension  evidence  only  the  weakness  of  the 
organs,  and  do  not  prove  that  the  tendency  itself 
to  seize  objects  is  an  acquisition  of  experience. 
If  a child  that  has  with  difficulty  succeeded  in 
taking  a plaything  or  a rattle  in  his  hand,  lets 
it  escape,  almost  immediately,  while  he  watches 
it  aghast,  as  it  rolls  about  on  the  floor,  it  is  not 
the  desire  to  keep  it  tha^t  is  wanting ; it  is  only 
strength  or  skill,  f 


* Mme.  Necker  de  Saussure,  L’fiducation  progressive,  book 
ii,  chapter  ii. 

+ “ Who  has  not  seen  and  been  surprised,”  says  Luys,  “ by 
the  incessant  motor  activity,  the  never-lagging  desire  of  young 
children  to  know  the  outside  world,  to  seize  it  in  their  little 


MOVEMENTS  THE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY.  93 

Preyer  has  studied  the  motor  phenomena  of 
prehension  very  minutely,  and  we  can  not  do 
better  than  report  some  of  his  observations.* *  In 
the  first  place,  it  can  be  proved  that  prehension 
by  the  fingers,  as  well  as  the  contraposition  of  the 
thumb,  which  is  its  indispensable  condition,  can 
be  produced  without  intention,  in  a reflex  way, 
as  a consequence  of  the  cutaneous  excitation 
caused  by  the  contact  of  a strange  body."^^  Thus, 
while  the  child^s  hands  move  in  every  direction, 
if  they  come  against  the  extended  finger  of  the 
nurse,  they  grasp  it  mechanically.  The  same 
with  the  rattle,  which  people  usually  take  the 
precaution  to  tie  around  the  baby's  neck,  because 
they  know  that  he  is  incapable  of  muscular  ten- 
sion suflBciently  prolonged  to  keep  it  from  escap- 
ing him.  But  toward  the  fourth  month  desire 
begins  to  direct  the  motions  of  the  arms.  If  the 
hand  is  carried  to  the  face,  we  can  no  longer  say 
that  it  gets  there  by  chance  in  the  course  of  the 
innumerable  motions  in  every  direction ; it  has 
been  conducted  there.  The  arms  are  extended 
toward  a desired  object,  and  the  beginning  of  an 
effort  to  attain  it  shows  itself.  It  was  during 
the  seventeenth  week,"  says  Preyer,  that  I first 
noticed  real  efforts  to  grasp  an  object  with  the 
hand.  This  object  was  a little  rubber  ball  that 
happened  to  be  within  reach,  but  the  child's  hand 
passed  to  the  side  of  it.  When  it  had  been  put 
into  his  hands  he  held  it  in  his  grasp  for  a long 

hands,  to  touch  everything  around  them,  and  to  take  note  of 
everything  near  them  ? (Luys,  Le  Cerveau,  p.  158.) 

* The  Senses  and  the  Will,  pp.  241-257. 


94  the  development  of  the  child. 

time,  then  lifted  it  to  his  month  and  to  his  eyes  ; 
all  this  with  a new  and  more  intelligent  expres- 
sion. The  day  afterward,  the  unskilful  but  ener- 
getic efforts  of  the  child  to  grasp  all  sorts  of  ob- 
jects placed  before  him  became  more  frequent. 
A few  days  later  he  extended  both  arms  to  me, 
for  the  first  time,  when  I went  to  see  him  in  the 
morning,  and  his  face  presented  an  indescribable 
expression  of  desire."’"’  It  was  not  only  desire,  but 
attention  also,  expressed  by  the  significant  mo- 
tion of  the  protrusion  of  the  lips,  that  animated 
Preyer^s  son  in  these  first  conscious  and  inten- 
tional efforts  of  prehension.  In  a few  weeks,  as 
we  see,  the  transition  has  been  made ; and  what 
was  at  first  exclusively  mechanical  is  on  the  way 
toward  becoming  voluntary. 

The  history  of  all  the  child^s  motions,  then, 
is  almost  the  same : irresistible,  blind,  fatal  im- 
pulses at  the  start ; then,  little  by  little,  conscious 
desires,  thoughtless,  but  lit  up  by  an  intellectual 
representation,  by  the  idea  of  an  end  to  be  at- 
tained ; finally,  will  and  efforts : such  are  the 
successive  causes  that  determine  them.  The 
child,  who  knows  nothing  at  first,  either  of  his 
organs  or  of  his  motor  powers,  or  of  the  rela- 
tion existing  between  his  motions  and  the  satis- 
faction of  his  needs,  learns  all  that,  little  by  little ; 
he  understands  all  his  motions  and  their  results ; 
he  comes  to  direct  them,  although  ignorant  of 
how  they  are  carried  on.  We  shall  find  charac- 
teristic examples  of  this  complex  evolution  in  the 
movements  that  we  shall  study  later,  because 
they  correspond  to  a subsequent  development,  to 


MOVEMENTS  TEE  FIRST  FORMS  OF  ACTIVITY.  95 


a more  advanced  period  in  the  child^s  life  ; in  the 
the  expressive  movements/  in  the  imitative  mo- 
tions, t and  even  in  the  movement  par  excellence 
— walking  locomotion.  J In  these  phenomena, 
although  the  term  voluntary  is  employed  in 
designating  them,  there  will  always  be  a reflex 
and  a spontaneous  element  about  which  we  have 
just  been  studying. 


* On  Expressive  Movements,  see  Chapter  V. 
f On  Imitative  Movements,  see  Chapter  IX. 

X 0.n  Voluntary  Movements,  see  Chapter  XII. 


CHAPTER  III. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SIGHT. 

I.  The  newborn  child  is  half  blind. — Natural  photophobia. — 
Cuignet’s  observations. — First  manifestations  of  appetence 
for  light — first  for  diffused  light,  then  for  luminous  objects, 
finally  for  brightly  coloured  objects. — The  field  of  vision  very 
limited  in  the  beginning. — The  range  of  sight  very  short  at 
first.  II.  Part  played  by  the  muscles  of  sight. — Motions  of 
the  eyelids. — A sort  of  apprenticeship  necessary  simply  to 
know  how  to  open  the  eye. — Corresponding  motions  of  the 
two  eyes. — These  motions,  inco-ordinate«at  first,  become  regu- 
lated, little  by  little. — Although  co-ordinate,  they  are  still 
involuntary. — Sight  itself  helps  to  develop  the  muscular 
mechanism. — How  the  child  comes  to  follow  moving  objects 
with  his  eyes. — The  accommodation  of  sight  is  not  imme- 
diate. III.  How  the  confused  picture  of  external  things 
gradually  resolves  itself. — Progress  of  the  participation  of 
the  brain. — Relative  independence  of  the  retina  and  of  the 
nervous  centres.— Distinguishing  colours. — Binet’s  observa- 
tions.— Yellow  and  red  the  first  colours  distinguished. — 
Hugo  Magnus’s  hypothesis. — The  progressive  evolution  of 
the  sense  of  colour. — Colour  the  first  revelation  of  the  sen- 
sible world. — The  child  passes  from  the  world  of  colours  to 
the  world  of  forms. — The  act  of  recognising  persons  and 
things  implies  the  perception  of  shapes  and  forms. — Appre- 
ciation of  distances. — Attention’s  role. — Infiuence  of  moral 
causes  on  the  development  of  sight. — Imperfection  of  sight 
in  imbeciles  and  idiots.  IV.  The  visual  perception  of  space. 
— Nativists  and  empiricists. — The  perception  of  distances  is 
not  innate. — Preyer’s  observations. — The  child  shows  by  the 
90 


DEVELOPMENT  OP  SIGHT. 


97 


awkward  motions  of  the  hand  that  he  does  not  appreciate 
distances. — Observations  made  on  people  born  blind. — The 
perception  of  distances  the  result  of  experience. — The  visual 
and  tactile  impressions  are  not  combined  at  first. 

In  beginning  tbe  study  of  sight  and  of  tlie 
other  sensations  or  perceptions  of  the  child,  we 
shall  enter  into  the  domain  of  the  intellectual  life 
and  into  the  history  of  the  humble  beginnings  of 
the  mind.  However  simple  the  act  of  perceiving, 
this  first  intellectual  element,  may  appear  to  be, 
it  must  not  be  thought  that  perception  is  possible 
from  the  first  day.  And,  to  speak  first  only  of 
the  most  important  of  the  senses — of  sight — I 
would  say  that  it  is  by  no  means  a paradox  to 
state  that  the  newborn  child  learns  to  see  just  as 
he  will  later  learn  to  walk,  as  he  learns  to  hear, 
to  touch.  Kant  said  that  during  the  first  three 
months  children'^s  sight  is  not  complete.  They 
receive  the  sensation  of  light,  but  can  not  distin- 
guish one  object  from  another.  It  is  easy,^^  he 
says,  to  convince  one^s  self  of  this  by  showing 
them  something  bright.  They  will  not  follow  it 
with  their  eyes.'^  A sort  of  evolution,  of  natural 
education  is  necessary,  that  the  child^s  eyes  may 
become  accustomed  to  the  light,  then  that  he  may 
form  the  habit  of  directing  his  looks,  of  fixing 
them  upon  objects,  of  recognising  them,  of  dis- 
cerning their  colour  and  their  form,  and,  finally, 
of  appreciating  distances.  Here,  as  everywhere, 
one  of  the  characteristic  laws  of  the  development 
of  mankind  reveals  itself — the  law  according  to 
which  the  child  acquires  by  exercise  and  learns 
by  experience  all  that  Nature  teaches  the  lower 


98  the  development  op  the  child. 


animals  in  the  beginning,  all  that  she  suggests  to 
them  by  blind  and  irresistible  instincts ; with  the 
exception,  of  course,  of  a few  of  the  child's  actions 
governed  directly  by  instinct,  which,  however, 
constitute  a minimum  of  the  operations  indis- 
pensable to  the  preservation  of  life. 

I. 

Every  child  is  to  a certain  extent  blind  at 
birth.  He  sees  enough  to  be  hurt  and  disturbed 
by  the  light,  if  it  is  bright,  but  not  enough  to 
distinguish  objects.  Doubtless  he  will  not  be 
long  in  showing  himself  eager  for  the  sensations 
produced  by  light.  In  a few  days  the  light  of 
a candle  will  be  enough  to  throw  him  into  a 
sort  of  ecstasy.  But  in  the  first  weeks  he  shows 
by  certain  signs  that,  far  from  liking  the  light, 
he  has  a fear  of  it,  so  to  speak.  Observers  of 
child  nature,  conscientious  in  other  respects, 
have  erred  in  admitting  as  an  established  truth 
the  opinion  that  the  newborn  child  seeks  for  and 
enjoys  the  light  of  day  from  the  very  first  mo- 
ments of  his  life.  Tiedemann  shows  no  hesi- 
tation on  this  point  : It  is  known,"  he  says, 

^^that  when  children  come  into  the  world,  and 
as  often  as  they  awake  afterward,  they  turn 
their  eyes  toward  the  light : a fact  which  proves 
I that  light  produces  an  agreeable  impression."* 


* The  error  is  a frequent  one.  We  find  it  again  in  Ribot’s 
book,  La  psychologie  allemande  (p.  11,  note) : “ A few  hours 
after  birth  the  child  follows  with  his  eyes  the  motions  of  a light 
a short  distance  from  him.” 


dp:velopment  of  sight. 


99 


Facts  flatly  contradict  this  assertion.  Physicians 
have  observed  in  adults  what  they  call  mor- 
bid photophobia,  which  causes  certain  nervous 
states,  or,  rather,  inflammations  of  the  eye.  In 
the  case  of  the  newborn  child,  the  fear  of  light, 
a sort  of  natural  photophobia,  is  the  normal 
state.  When  he  opens  his  eyes  for  the  flrst 
time,  after  the  almost  uninterrupted  sleep  that 
he  has  been  enjoying,  he  closes  them  almost  im- 
mediately, as  though  dazzled  by  the  light  of  day. 
In  this  first  contact  of  his  delicate  organs  with 
the  ether  waves,  on  coming  out  of  the  dark  prison 
in  which  he  has  lived  for  nine  months,  he  feels 
in  an  intense  degree  the  impression  of  discomfort 
which  the  sudden  appearance  of  light  succeeding 
darkness  produces  even  on  the  experienced  eyes 
of  the  adult.  It  is  for  this  reason,  doubtless,  that 
the  child  has  a marked  tendency  to  sleep  in  the 
daytime  rather  than  at  night.  The  eyes  of  the 
newborn  child,^^  says  Espinas,  open  by  prefer- 
ence at  twilight  and  in  the  evening."^  * Preyer, 
who  can  not  be  accused  of  any  lack  of  precision 
and  vigilance  in  his  experiments,  since  his  son 
had  not  been  in  the  world  five  minutes  before  he 
held  him  at  the  window  at  dawn  to  observe  the 
effect  of  light  upon  him,  recognises  also  that  the, 
child  feels  at  first  a real  antipathy  toward  light,  f I 
Cuignet,  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  very  inter- 
esting observations  upon  two  children,  studied 
from  birth  to  the  complete  development  of  the 

* Annales  de  la  Faculte  des  lettres  de  Bordeaux,  1883, 
p.  383. 

t The  Senses  and  the  Will,  p.  5. 

8 


100  the  development  op  the  child. 


faculty  of  sight,  is  very  positive  in  his  opinion : 
The  second  day,  the  child  likes  darkness  better 
than  light ; he  does  not  open  his  eyes  except 
when  in  darkness.”  * If  he  half  opens  his  eye- 
lids during  the  day  he  immediately  blinks  his 
eyes.  Do  not  let  us  look  yet  for  those  beauti- 
ful, clear,  and  fixed  looks  which  later  will  render 
his  countenance  adorable.  The  newborn  child 
squints ; he  squints  to  avoid  the  brightness  of 
the  light.  He  has  from  birth  a marked  con- 
vergent power  which  permits  him  to  shelter  his 
eye  in  the  dark  chamber  formed  by  the  angle  of 
the  eye.f  Just  as  we  make  a sudden  inclination 
of  the  head  to  avoid  a stone  about  to  strike  us,  so 
the  child  by  a sort  of  instinctive  strabism  turns 
the  pupil  to  protect  himself  from  the  blinding 
light.]: 

The  observations  made  upon  people  born 
blind  to  whom  a successful  operation  has  given 
sight  confirm,  by  analogy,  what  we  have  just 
said  of  the  child^s  first  impressions.  In  the  case 
of  a woman  forty  years  old,  who  had  been  blind 
from  birth,  operated  upon  by  Wardrop,  the  sud- 
den brightness  of  day  produced  a disagreeable 
sensation ; the  woman  complained  that  the  light 


* Annales  d’oculistique,  Bruxelles,  vol.  Ixvi,  p.  117. 
t Ibid. 

t Compare  the  following  observation  : “We  have  seen  a child 
three  months  old,  when  a light  was  brouglit  near  him,  lying  in 
his  cradle,  draw  his  coverlet  up  little  by  little  until  it  reached 
his  eyes  and  hid  him  completely,  doubtless,  because  the  bright- 
ness of  the  light  hurt  him.”  (Espinas,  Lcs  Societes  animales, 
p.  52.) 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SIGHT. 


101 


hurt  her  eyes.*  So,  in  the  case  of  a child  attend- 
ed by  Home,  the  light  was  manifestly  disagree- 
able to  the  eye : the  pupil  was  clear,  but  the  pa- 
tient could  not  endure  daylight,  f 

According  to  Cuignet,  the  strabismus  of  the 
newborn  child  lasts  until  the  twentieth  day.  It 
is  probable,  however,  that  this  state  of  uneasiness 
and  suffering  does  not  last  as  long  as  this.  The 
child  observed  by  Espinas  did  not  dread  the  light 
after  the  fourteenth  day.  But  it  is  quite  certain 
that  a second  period  begins  very  soon,  toward  the 
third  week,  when  the  child^s  eyes  have  served 
their  apprenticeship,  and  show  a decided  taste 
and  a manifest  appetence  for  light.  Simply  let- 
ting in  the  light  will  often  quiet  a crying  child. 
I know  very  well  that  he  is  not  yet  capable  of 
following  an  object  with  his  eyes,  nor  of  fixing 
his  gaze  upon  it ; but  the  light  spread  around 
him,  the  diffused  light,  pleases  him — it  causes 
agreeable  sensations.  Cuignet  found  that  his 
son  seemed  to  tire  of  being  in  darkness  too  long 
from  the  sixteenth  day,  that  he  was  quiet  as  soon 
as  a candle  was  lighted,  that  he  seemed  to  enjoy 
a soft  light  shed  upon  the  objects  about  him. 

But  very  soon  the  child  is  no  longer  contented 
with  the  vague  pleasure  that  he  finds  in  being 
plunged,  as  it  were,  in  a bath  of  light.  After  a 
few  weeks  his  eyes  have  gained  strength  enough 
to  look  at  luminous  objects.  Darwin  even  claims 
that  from  the  ninth  day  the  gaze  of  his  son  Doddy 

* See  Philosophical  Transactions  of  the  Royal  Society,  Lon- 
don, 1826,  vol.  iii,  pp.  529-540. 

t Ibid.,  1867,  vol.  i,  pp.  85-87. 


102  the  development  of  the  child. 

was  fixed  upon  a lighted  candle.  A moderate  and 
diffused  light  at  first,  then  a bright  light,  not  too 
bright,  however,  centred  in  a luminous  object, 
that  is  what  pleases  the  child.  Up  to  the  forty- 
fifth  day,  Darwin  says  further,  no  other  object 
seemed  to  attract  Doddy's  eyes  to  the  same  de- 
gree as  did  a lighted  candle.  It  is  necessary,  to 
be  sure,  that  the  candle  should  be  placed  at  some 
distance  from  the  child ; if  too  near  it  would 
oblige  him  to  blink,  or  even  to  completely  close 
his  eyes.  But  when  this  condition  is  complied 
with,  it  seems  to  be  established  that  the  child 
sees  and  looks  at  luminous  objects  first — the 
flame  of  a lamp,  the  fire  in  the  grate.  Objects 
that  simply  reflect  the  light  will  not  attract  his 
attention  until  later,  and  then  beginning  with 
the  brightest,  those  whose  colours  are  most  strik- 
ing ; for  instance,  the  gaily  coloured  tassel  re- 
garded with  admiration  by  Doddy  on  the  forty- 
ninth  day,  as  was  evidenced  by  the  fixedness  of 
his  gaze  and  the  sudden  immovableness  of  his 
arms  ; or  again,  the  red  curtain  brightly  lighted 
up  by  the  sun  which  PreyeUs  son  greeted  with  a 
smile  of  content  on  the  twenty-third  day. 

It  is  in  the  education  of  sight — that  is  to  say, 
of  the  most  essential,  the  most  complicated  of  our 
organs  of  sense-perception — that  Nature  has  in- 
troduced the  greatest  number  of  steps,  of  little 
progressions,  and  that  she  has  employed  the  most 
caution  and  delay  in  conducting  a faculty,  seem- 
ingly innate,  to  its  final  development.  Step  by 
step,  as  has  been  said,  sight  becomes  accustomed 
to  lights  more  and  more  intense,  and  extends 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SIGHT. 


103 


farther  and  farther  the  limits  at  which  the  eye 
is  dazzled.*  But  even  this  light,  spread  abroad 
or  centred  in  a single  point,  the  eyes  can  not 
grasp  immediately  in  all  its  directions,  nor  per- 
ceive at  a great  distance.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
field  of  vision  is  restricted  for  the  newborn  child ; 
on  the  other,  the  range  of  sight  is  limited  and 
short. 

However  little  we  may  observe  the  child,  in 
the  first  gropings  of  sight  we  are  convinced  that 
his  eyes  do  not  perceive  objects  situated  to  the 
right  or  to  the  left  of  his  little  body.  The  new- 
born child  sees  only  in  a straight  line  before  him. 
His  sight  is  confined,  as  it  were,  in  a narrow  pas- 
sage ; there  is,  so  to  speak,  a wall  on  both  sides 
of  him,  which  prevents  sight  from  acting  in  a 
direction  other  than  straight  in  front  of  him. 
To  test  this,  move  the  candle  that  he  has  looked 
at  a few  centimetres  to  the  right  or  to  the  left, 
or  even  above  or  below  its  former  position,  and 
you  will  see  that  he  has  lost  sight  of  it,  and  that 
he  allows  his  eyes  to  wander  about  aimlessly. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  why  the  field  of  vision 
is  so  limited  in  the  beginning.  The  first  reason 
is  that  the  child  has  not  yet  the  faculty  of  mov- 
ing his  e^^eball  easily  and  that  he  has  not,  above 
all,  the  power  of  moving  his  head,  since  he  can 
not  even  hold  it  upright.  But  it  is  only  by  means 

* Certain  animals  can  exercise  their  sight  with  less  light 
than  children : there  is  no  doubt,  consequently,  but  that  daz- 
zling begins  sooner  for  them,  and  that  the  intense  light  of  the 
noonday  sun,  for  instance,  would  cause  a very  disagreeable  im- 
pression. 


104  the  development  of  the  child. 


of  the  motions  of  the  eye  and  of  the  head  that  the 
increased  power  of  vision  will  attain  later  its 
normal  extent  in  every  direction.  Another  more 
subtle  reason  is  that,  according  to  the  observa- 
tions of  physiologists,  the  sensibility  of  the  retina 
would  be  confined  to  the  central  tract ; the  peri- 
pheric parts  would  not  become  sensible  to  light 
until  later,  and  then  little  by  little.*  Therefore 
the  limited  visual  perception  of  the  newborn 
child  would  not  depend  merely  upon  the  mus- 
cular weakness,  the  inability  to  turn  the  eyes 
from  one  side  to  the  other ; it  would  be  caused 
also  by  the  imperfection  of  the  nascent  organ. 
Reduced  to  a central  sensibility,  the  retina  would 
not  be  in  a condition  to  respond  to  the  lateral 
solicitations  of  surrounding  objects. f 

Another  fact,  as  indisputable,  is  that  sight  has 
at  first  only  a very  short  range.  Place  a lighted 
candle  two  or  three  metres  from  a child  fifteen  or 
twenty  days  old ; he  will  look  at  it  fixedly ; if 
you  place  it  three,  four,  or  five  metres  from  him, 
it  will  become  evident  that  the  child  has  lost 
sight  of  the  light,  and  you  will  be  sure  from  the 
uncertainty  of  his  glances  that  he  no  longer  per- 
ceives anything.  Here,  too,  there  is  a progressive 
development,  and  it  is  hard  to  say  exactly  at 
what  time  the  child  acquires  the  regular  range  of 
vision.  According  to  Cuignet,  a child  two  months 
and  a half  old  would  see  seven  or  eight  metres. 

* On  this  point  see  Hugo  Magnus,  History  of  the  Evolution 
of  the  Sense  of  Colour. 

f According  to  Cuignet,  at  two  months  and  a half  the  child 
would  have  still  only  central  vision. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SIGHT. 


105 


According  to  Espinas,  the  child  two  months  old 
would  not  perceive  anything  farther  away  than 
fifty  centimetres ; a child  three  months  old  not 
farther  than  a metre.*  Perhaps  these  contradic- 
tions arise  from  the  fact  that  in  the  two  series  of 
observations  the  objects  considered  were  not  of 
the  same  nature : in  the  first  case,  the  flame  of  a 
candle;  in  the  second,  simply  an  object  in  the  light, 
the  face  of  a person.  However  this  may  be,  bear- 
ing in  mind  the  fact  that  in  the  education  of 
sight,  as  in  all  the  other  faculties,  the  natural  in- 
equalities of  health  and  of  strength  may  advance 
or  retard  the  date  of  the  complete  development 
of  the  organs  and  their  functions,  it  is  proved 
that  adaptation,  accommodation,  which  permits 
the  eye  to  see  at  greater  and  greater  distances,  is 
organized  only  slowly  and  progressively.  Every 
newborn  child  is  a provisional  myope,  f The 
picture  of  exterior  Nature,  with  all  its  perspec- 
tive, its  depths,  and  its  backgrounds,  is  not  un- 
rolled at  first  before  the  astonished  and  enrap- 
tured gaze  of  the  child.  He  does  not  enter  the 
world,  as  we  do  the  theatre,  upon  a scene  all  ar- 
ranged in  advance,  which  the  spectator  sees  as  a 
w^hole  at  one  glance ; it  is  jnece  by  piece,  bit  by 
bit,  that  the  world  of  visible  things  presents 


* At  one  year  the  child  observed  by  Preyer  distinguished 
men  sawing  wood  more  than  a hundred  feet  away. 

t The  experiments  made  by  von  Jager  in  1861,  and  attempted 
by  Preyer,  confirm  this  point.  It  is  true,  the  same  author  cites 
contradictory  experiments,  and  concludes  by  urging  the  neces- 
sity of  new  observations  on  this  point.  We  believe  that  innate 
presbyopia  is  the  exception,  at  any  rate. 


106  the  development  of  the  child. 

itself  to  his  eyes,  and  that  the  curtain  that  cov- 
ered it  is  torn  away  and  raised. 

The  two  causes  that  we  have  already  stated 
contribute  to  extending  the  range  in  front  as 
well  as  to  the  progress  of  the  lateral  extent : First, 
the  state  of  the  retina,  which  gains  its  sensibility 
little  by  little,  from  the  centre  to  the  periphery, 
so  that  the  image  which  should  be  formed  exactly 
on  the  retina,  and  not  in  front  of  or  behind  it,  in 
order  that  the  sight  should  be  clear  and  distinct, 
has  henceforth  more  chances  of  being  produced 
under  the  required  conditions;  in  the  second 
place,  the  growth  in  strength  of  the  muscles,  of 
those  that  allow  the  eyeball  to  move  and  to  change 
its  position  within  certain  limits,  as  well  as  of 
those  that  assure  the  movements  of  the  head  it- 
self. It  is  with  this  last  point  that  we  are  now 
about  to  occupy  ourselves. 

II. 

Vision,  it  is  known,  does  not  result  merely 
from  the  sensibility  peculiar  to  the  optic  organs ; 
it  presupposes  determined  motions  which  of 
themselves  render  clear  and  complete  sight  pos- 
sible.* Visual  perception  is  not,  as  one  might 
think,  a simple  passive  reception  of  the  luminous 
ray,  striking  a screen  prepared  to  receive  it. 
There  appears  here,  as  everywhere,  this  neces- 


* Maine  de  Biran  wrote  in  his  Memoire  sur  I’habitude : “ It 
is  difhcult  to  say  in  what  narrow  limits  the  functions  of  sight 
would  be  circled,  if  considered  apart  from  the  particular  mo- 
bilty  of  this  organ.” 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SIGHT. 


107 


sary  condition  of  all  mental  phenomena ; col- 
laboration, participation  of  the  inner  activity, 
which  is  reduced,  it  is  true,  in  the  present  case, 
to  motions.  And  even  the  most  rudimentary  of 
these  motions  are  not  performed  regularly  from 
the  first  day.  It  is  not  only  the  optic  sensibility 
that  is  weak  and  incomplete  in  the  newborn 
child ; it  is  not  only  attention  and  intellectual 
force  that  are  lacking,  whether  in  fixing  and  look- 
ing at  objects  or  in  interpreting  sensible  appear- 
ances ; it  is  the  physiological  mechanism  that  is 
still  imperfect ; it  is  the  material  apparatus,  the 
muscular  apparatus,  that  does  not  act  normally. 
There  is  in  this  a period  of  gropings  analogous 
to  those  of  an  astronomer  who  is  trying  to  point 
his  telescope  and  who  can  not  clearly  perceive 
the  star  that  is  the  object  of  his  investigations 
unless  he  adjusts  the  instrument  exactly. 

If  we  were  still  imagining  that  there  is  noth- 
ing acquired  in  the  exercise  of  the  sense  of  sight, 
that  all  is  innate,  it  would  be  sufficient  to  unde- 
ceive us  to  examine  the  motions  of  the  eyelids, 
and  to  see  that  a sort  of  apprenticeship  is  neces- 
sary in  order  merely  to  open  the  eyes.  It  is  a 
question  of  very  simple  motions,  however,  in  this 
case.  At  the  same  time  an  essential  condition 
of  sight  is  involved,  since  the  motions  of  the  eye- 
lids, when  co-ordinate,  have  no  end  other  than  to 
raise  for  both  eyes  at  the  same  time,  and  at  the 
desired  moment,  the  veil,  the  curtain,  which  hides 
Nature  from  us  when  it  is  lowered.  But  for  a 
few  weeks  the  motions  of  the  eyelids  present 
neither  co-ordination  nor  symmetry.  One  eye 


108  the  development  of  the  child. 


opens  while  the  other  remains  closed.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  eyelids  do  not  accompany  the 
pupil  regularly  in  its  own  motions.  All  ob- 
servers agree  on  this  point,  and  afl&rm  that  the 
co-ordination  of  the  motions  of  the  eyeball  with 
those  of  the  eyelids  does  not  exist  at  first.  One 
motion  only  seems  to  be  innate,  and  yet  Darwin 
doubts  this  ; it  is  the  motion  by  which  the  eyelid 
is  lowered  and  the  pupil  protected  from  the 
wounds  of  too  bright  a light.  As  to  the  squint- 
ing and  the  blinking  of  the  eyelids,  which  the 
approach  of  an  object  causes  instinctively  in  the 
adult,  what  Preyer  calls  the  test  of  the  aggres- 
sive hand,"^  this  is  not  produced  during  the  first 
weeks  either. 

But  what  is  much  more  important,  and  this  is 
progressive,  too,  is  the  adjustment  of  special  con- 
tractions by  which  the  muscles  bring  about  cor- 
responding motions  of  both  eyes.  The  child 
learns  to  use  the  ocular  muscles  to  see,  just  as  he 
will  learn  a little  later  to  use  the  crural  muscles 
to  walk.  And  there  are  several  stages  in  this 
education : First,  motions  that  are  not  coordi- 
nate; then  motions  that  are  regular  but  in- 
voluntary ; finally,  and  it  is  only  then  that  the 
child  really  possesses  the  faculty  of  directing  his 
glances,  voluntary  motions. 

It  is  easy  to  prove  that  the  motions  of  the 
Childs's  eyes  are  not  co-ordinate  in  the  beginning. 
The  right  eye  looks  to  one  side,  the  left  to  the 
other.  There  is  no  association  yet,  no  conver- 
gence in  the  motions  that  cause  the  eyes  to  look 
up  or  down,  without  or  within,  to  the  right  or  to 


DEVELOPMENT  OP  SIGHT. 


109 


the  left.  More  accurate  and  often  repeated  ob- 
servations of  the  eye  movements  of  the  child/^ 
says  Preyer,  especially  during  the  first  six  days, 
taught  me  that  the  simultaneous  turning  of  both 
eyes  to  the  left  or  the  right  is  not  co-ordinated 
with  complete  symmetry,  as  it  is  in  adults.  In  a 
child  ten  hours  old,  and  in  another  six  days  old, 
both  of  whose  eyes  were  wide  open,  I saw  mo- 
tions several  times  that  seemed  to  be  co-ordinate 
in  both  eyes.  But  on  closer  examination  these 
motions  showed  that  they  were  not  of  exactly  the 
the  same  direction.  On  the  whole,  I have  found 
in  the  newborn  child  that  one  eye  often  moves 
independently  of  the  other,  and  that  the  head  is 
often  inclined  in  a direction  different  from  that 
followed  by  the  motions  of  the  eyes.* 

This  picture  of  the  child,  which  represents 
him  as  an  ugly,  grimacing  thing  in  the  incoher- 
ence of  his  ocular  motions,  we  are  at  first  tempted 
to  reject  as  inexact  and  false.  People  will  say : 
Who  has  not  seen  very  little  children  look,  or 
at  least  turn  their  eyes  in  the  same  direction 
with  perfect  ease — for  instance,  on  the  face  of 
their  mother  or  their  nurse,  when  she  speaks  to 
them  or  smiles  at  them  There  certainly  are 
numerous  examples  of  agreement  in  the  motions 
of  the  eyes  from  the  very  first  days.  What  still 
remains  true,  however,  is  that  this  seeming  agree- 
ment is  a chance  one  ; it  arises  from  the  excita- 
tion produced  by  a very  bright  object  which,  be- 
ing in  the  field  of  vision,  holds  the  uncertain  gaze 


* The  Senses  and  the  Will,  p.  36. 


110  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CHILD. 


of  the  child  and  forces  upon  him,  so  to  speak, 
regularity  of  his  muscular  contractions.  This  is 
what  Preyer  thinks,  who  declares  that  he  has 
never  found  in  any  child  the  exclusive  existence 
of  co-ordinate  motions,  and  that  he  has  estab- 
lished the  existence  of  inco-ordinate  motions  up 
to  the  age  of  three  months. 

Some  time  must  pass,  then,  for  the  useless  dis- 
jointed motions,  which  are  of  no  value  to  sight, 
to  be  effaced  in  the  general  current  of  normal 
life,  that  they  may  give  place  to  the  only  use- 
ful motions,  to  those  that  assist  the  child  in  see- 
ing, and  that  from  this  sort  of  original  chaos 
may  come,  insensibly,  order  and  regulated  direc- 
tion. There  is  the  child  spoken  of  by  Espinas, 
who  knows  how  to  follow  the  light  of  a lamp, 
being  moved  from  place  to  place,  on  the  twenty- 
sixth  day ; * who  when  two  months  old  directs 
his  glances  better  and  better,  and  even  fixes  them 
upon  the  eyes  of  the  person  talking  to  him.  And 
Cuignet  also  shows  us  a child  looking  about  him 
the  twentieth  day  without  moving  his  head,  by 
the  mere  motion  of  the  eyeballs.  The  mechanism 
of  the  muscular  apparatus  gains  strength  from 
day  to  day ; the  head  becomes  accustomed  to  ac- 
companying the  motions  of  the  eyes,  and  the 
sight,  thus  carried  in  every  direction,  acquires  its 
full  range. 

But  it  must  not  be  imagined  that  will  plays 
any  part  in  this  progressive  regulation  of  the 


* Compare  the  observation  of  Preyer,  who  found  the  same 
action  on  the  twenty-second  day  (p.  85). 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SIGHT. 


Ill 


ocular  motions.  Will  does  not  exist  until  much 
later.  If  it  were  true,  as  Preyer  says,  that  all ""  fix- 
ation of  the  glance  is  an  act  of  will,  we  should 
have  to  conclude  that  fixation  is  a thing  un- 
known to  the  child.  It  is  not  so,  however.  We 
have  all  seen  the  prolonged  contemplation  in 
which  a very  little  child  indulges  when  the 
flowers  in  a curtain  or  brilliant  objects  of  any 
sort  are  before  him;  his  face,  ordinarily  so 
changeable,  resembles  that  of  a meditative  or 
rapturous  person.  The  cause  of  this  is  not  in  a 
voluntary  intention,  in  a personal  effort,  in  an  in- 
ner power  of  concentrating  his  gaze  wherever  he 
will,  but  simply  in  the  excitation  produced  by 
the  luminous  perceptions  which  attract  and  cap- 
tivate the  child.  It  is  the  muscular  mechanism 
that  when  once  regulated  will  permit  sight  to  ex- 
tend in  every  direction,  to  radiate,  to  become  that 
wonderful  sense  of  touch  by  means  of  which  a 
star  in  the  infinite  heavens  may  be  grasped.  But 
it  is  sight  itself  that  calls  forth  the  development 
of  the  muscular  mechanism  in  the  beginning. 
Indeed,  when  the  child  has  looked  a certain  num- 
ber of  times  upon  objects  naturally  placed  within 
his  range  and  his  line  of  vision,  his  ocular  mus- 
cles form,  as  it  were,  the  habit  of  associating  their 
motions  ; they  do  this  by  the  simple  force  of  cir- 
cumstances under  the  rule  of  a dominant  sensa- 
tion continued  or  often  repeated.  And  when  they 
have  once  taken  their  bent  they  hold  to  it — that 
is,  they  become  qualified  to  associate  one  with 
the  other,  instinctively,  under  the  impulse  of  a 
desire,  of  an  inner  curiosity — so  that  when  will 


112  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  THE  CHILD. 


appears  it  will  find  the  optic  mechanism  ready  to 
act  according  to  its  orders. 

It  is  the  fact  of  vision  also  which,  coincident 
with  the  development  of  the  muscular  forces, 
with  the  consolidation  of  the  muscles,  explains 
how  the  child's  eye  reaches  the  point  where  it 
moves  easily,  how  the  child  removes  his  gaze  to 
follow  the  motion  of  objects.  He  arrives  at  this 
point  by  slow  stages.  ^‘1  was  surprised,"  says 
Darwin,  to  see  how  slowly  my  son  acquired  the 
faculty  of  following  an  object  with  his  eyes  when 
it  was  waved  quite  rapidly  before  him ; even  at 
the  age  of  seven  months  and  a half  he  had  not 
acquired  it  fully."  It  was  not  until  the  twenty- 
ninth  month,"  says  Preyer,  that  I saw  the  child 
follow  the  flight  of  a bird  with  his  eyes.  Still 
more  time  was  needed  for  him  to  follow  the  ob- 
jects and  playthings  that  he  allowed  to  fall  to 
the  floor  after  having  amused  himself  with 
them."  It  is  slowly  moving  objects,  as  the  pen- 
dulum of  a clock  or  a heavily  laden  cart,  that  the 
child  first  follows  with  his  eyes.  His  sight,  a 
prisoner  of  the  sensation  of  light  that  enslaves  it, 
determines  the  muscular  motions  necessary  in 
order  that  this  sensation  should  continue,  that 
the  moving  object  should  remain  within  the  field 
of  vision.  If  the  displacement  of  the  objects  is 
too  sudden  the  eyes  come  to  a halt ; the  con- 
tinuity is  broken ; the  muscles  are  not  yet  strong 
enough  or  trained  enough ; they  can  not  quickly 
make  the  eyeball  perform  the  motion  indispen- 
sable to  the  adaptation  of  sight  to  a new  distance. 
A child  whose  eyes  can  follow  the  smoke  of  a 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SIGHT. 


113 


puff  of  tobacco  or  the  course  of  a cloud  in  the 
sky  still  can  not  change  the  direction  of  his 
glances  quickly  enough  to  follow  the  swallow 
cleaving  the  air,  or  even  the  plaything  that  falls 
from  his  knees  to  the  floor.  In  the  flrst  case  ac- 
commodation— that  is  to  say,  the  faculty  which 
the  eye  possesses  of  adapting  itself  to  different 
distances  in  order  to  see  well — is  carried  on  insen- 
sibly; the  glance,  as  though  gently  led  by  a 
string,  obeys  and  yields  to  the  action  of  the 
luminous  sensation,  like  a young  dog  allowing 
himself  to  be  led  by  the  end  of  a string  which 
has  been  put  in  his  mouth  and  of  which  he  does 
not  wish  to  let  go.  In  the  second  case,  the  transi- 
tion is  not  gradual  enough  for  the  motions  of  the 
eye  to  be  performed,  and  the  glance  is  discon- 
certed, loses  trace  of  the  object.  A long  training 
of  the  muscles  is  necessary  under  the  flrst  form, 
in  order  that  the  second  operation  may  become 
possible,  that  the  muscles  of  the  neck  and  the 
ocular  muscles  may  acquire  sufficient  flexibility, 
and  that  they  may  make  the  position  of  the  head 
and  of  the  eyes  agree  exactly  with  the  position 
in  space  of  the  moving  object,  which  is  tending 
to  escape  from  sight. 

Let  us  conclude,  then,  that  the  muscular  ap- 
paratus, which  assists  sight,  does  not  act  im- 
mediately in  the  normal  conditions,  in  man,  at 
least ; for  the  case  seems  to  be  different  in  ani- 
mals, in  the  chicken  for  instance,  which  can  ap- 
preciate distances  as  soon  as  it  is  out  of  the  shell, 
as  is  shown  by  the  way  it  plunders  grain,  and 
can  follow  with  unfailing  precision  the  motions 


114  THE  DJ]VELOPMENT  OF  THE  CHILD. 

of  an  insect  crawling  on  the  ground.  In  man 
there  is  no  inherited  or  innate  accommodation, 
adaptation  of  the  visual  functions.  Nature  fur- 
nishes the  child  directly  with  luminous  sensations 
only,  sight,  more  or  less  distinct,  of  objects  placed 
directly  before  him  at  a limited  distance  from 
him ; and  yet,  as  we  have  seen,  she  does  not  do 
this  even  until  several  days  have  passed,  and  the 
organs  have  become  strong  enough  to  endure  the 
nervous  excitation  of  light.  In  order  that  sight 
should  succeed  in  conquering  space  it  is  necessary 
for  the  muscles  to  enter  into  play,  and  it  is  exer- 
cise alone  that  will  render  the  muscles  flexible, 
that  will  strengthen  them  little  by  little  and  be 
the  means  of  educating  them. 

III. 

A person  born  blind,  upon  being  asked  what 
impression  he  felt  a few  days  after  the  operation 
that  had  given  him  his  sight,  answered : I see 

an  extended  bright  field  where  everything  seems 
dim,  confused,  and  in  motion.'’^  * It  is  thus,  prob- 
ably, that  the  picture  of  external  things  appears 
to  the  first  glance  of  the  child.  Even  when  two  or 
three  months  old  the  child  does  not  distinguish 
one  object  from  another.  A few  bright  points,  the 
flame  of  a lamp,  the  sparkling  eyes  of  his  mother 
or  of  his  nurse,  a brightly  coloured  plaything, 
appear  first  on  this  dim,  confused  scene  which 
the  world  presents  to  him.f  New  images  are 

* Philosophical  Transactions  of  the  Itoyal  Society,  1841, 
vol.  i,  p.  59. 

f “ I feel  certain,”  says  Taine,  “ that  for  the  first  two  months 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SIGHT. 


115 


detached  little  by  little  from  the  vague  whole, 
define  themselves  clearly,  particularize  them- 
selves in  distinct  sensations,  according  as  the 
objects  present  themselves  to  him  with  more 
or  less  intense  light  or  colour.  The  child  goes 
from  discovery  to  discovery ; from  the  second 
to  the  third  month  he  seems  to  perceive  for 
the  first  time  objects  or  persons  that  have 
been  before  him  from  his  birth.  The  canvas  is 
animated  little  by  little;  all  the  parts  become 
brighter.  The  colours  are  distinguished  first, 
and  with  them  consecutively  the  forms  that  they 
determine  later,  the  relief,  the  depth  of  bodies. 
As  in  a scene  formed  by  the  scene  shifter  little 
by  little,  to  amuse  the  spectators,  each  object 
comes  to  take  its  place  successively  in  the  field 
of  vision,  and  at  the  same  time  that  it  widens, 
extends  its  depth. 

In  this  work  of  elaboration  which  enlarges 
the  child^s  visual  horizon,  which  makes  complete 
clearness  about  him,  which  enables  him  to  dis- 
cern and  interpret  sensible  phenomena,  which,  in 
a word,  substitutes  real  perceptions  for  confused 
sensations,  it  is  necessary  to  take  account  of  the 
general  cause,  which  is  the  condition  of  all 
mental  development  and  which  alone  renders 
complete  vision  possible : I mean  the  progress  of 
the  participation  of  the  brain.  The  first  lumi- 
nous impressions  interest  only  the  retina,  the  optic 
nerves,  and  the  optic  thalami ; they  do  not  com- 

the  outside  world  to  the  child  consists  of  a few  sounds  and  a 
few  specks  of  colour  which  he  can  not  place,’’  (De  I’lntelligence, 
book  ii,  chap,  ii.) 

9 


116  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  CHILD. 


municate  themselves  to  the  hrain^  which  is  not 
yet  in  condition  to  receive  and  use  them.  The 
child^s  brain,  we  must  not  forget,  is  in  process  of 
development.  It  is  only  in  the  second  month 
that  the  convolutions  and  the  ganglionary  cells 
appear.  Anatomists  say  that  in  the  first  months 
of  the  intra-uterine  life,  the  retina  is  absolutely 
independent  of  the  encephalic  nervous  centres; 
it  is  not  until  a later  period  that  the  nervous 
elements  of  the  retina  and  the  cerebral  masses 
will  unite  through  the  medium  of  the  optic 
nerves.^^  * It  is  probable  that  this  union  is  not  ac- 
complished immediately  after  birth  ; and,  in  any 
case,  exercise  is  necessary  to  the  formation  of 
broad  and  convenient  paths  of  association  be- 
tween the  different  parts  of  the  nervous  system, 
and  to  the  establishment  of  a correspondence, 
a regular  communication,  between  the  images 
formed  on  the  retina  and  the  cerebral  centres, 
whose  co-operation  is  indispensable  in  any  real 
perception. 

But  although  the  progressive  organization  of 
the  brain  and  its  action  ruling  over  all  must  be 
taken  into  account,  it  is  none  the  less  true  that  a 
local  work,  so  to  speak,  is  carried  on  in  the  eye 
itself,  in  the  state  of  its  nervous  elements  as  well 
as  in  its  muscular  apparatus,  which  has  its  part 
in  bringing  the  Childs’s  sight,  little  by  little,  to 
the  highest  point  of  its  development. 

So  far  we  have  spoken  only  of  the  distinction 


* Dictionnaire  de  medecine  et  de  chirurgie,  Dr.  Jaccoud, 
article  CEil. 


DE\"ELOPMENT  OP  SIGHT. 


117 


of  light  and  darkness,  of  day  and  night — that  is 
to  say,  of  the  sensibility  to  white  or  diffused 
light.  But  very  soon  the  child  gives  evidence 
of  being  sensible  also  to  the  accidents  of  light — 
that  is  to  say,  to  colours.  Pink  or  red  ribbons 
lighted  up  by  the  sun,  gilded  frames  shining  in 
the  lamplight,  a bouquet  of  flowers,  in  fine — every- 
thing that  is  coloured,  that  is  bright,  appeals  to 
children's  sight  and  delights  them. 

At  what  moment  does  the  eye  of  the  child  go 
beyond  simple  sensibility  to  light  and  begin  to 
discern  colours  ? We  can  not  tell  this  exactly. 
The  minute  and  precise  observations  made  by 
Preyer  and  Binet  on  the  sense  of  colour  apply 
only  to  children  two  or  three  years  old.*  They 
have  the  common  plan  of  presenting  to  the  child 
samples  of  different  colours,  and  of  ascertaining 
how  many  times  he  correctly  names  the  red,  the 
green,  the  yellow,  etc.  These  are  rather,  to  speak 
exactly,  experiments  on  language  and  the  prog- 
ress of  memory ; for  it  is  evident  that  the  child 
can  distinguish  the  colours  perfectly,  and,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  it  is  certain  that  he  distinguishes 
them  long  before  he  possesses  the  infallible  fac- 
ulty of  associating  each  one  with  the  name  that 
designates  it  in  the  language  of  men.  It  is  pre- 
cisely for  this  reason  that  Binet  has  substituted 


* “ In  order  to  find  out  how  it  is  with  simple  colours,  I made 
several  hundred  experiments  on  my  son,  beginning  with  the  end 
of  the  second  year  ” (p.  6).  “ I have  studied  the  chromatic  sen- 

sibility in  a little  girl  from  the  age  of  two  and  a half  to  three.” 
(Binet,  Revue  Philosophique,  article  Perceptions  d’enfants,  1890, 
vol.  XXX,  p.  584.) 


118  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OP  THE  CHILD. 


for  what  he  calls  the  method  of  appellation  of 
Preyer,  the  method  of  recognition/"  which  con- 
sists in  making  the  child  select  from  a bunch  of 
samples  of  different  colours  a particular  one  that 
has  been  shown  him  before.  This  method  has 
the  advantage  of  doing  away  with  the  complica- 
tions resulting  from  the  inexpert  management  of 
language  and  of  avoiding  the  confusion  of  words, 
which  does  not  always  correspond  to  a confusion 
of  things.  But  it  implies,  on  the  other  hand,  that 
the  child  understands  what  we  want  to  say  to 
him  when  we  ask  him  to  select  the  sample  at 
first  presented,  then  removed  from  his  sight.  It 
can  not  be  employed,  then,  in  the  case  of  the  very 
young  child,  and  Binet  has  applied  it  only  to  sub- 
jects two  or  three  years  old. 

These  experiments,  although  applied  a little 
late,  give  us,  nevertheless,  some  information  con- 
cerning what  has  previously  taken  place  in  the 
eyes  of  the  newborn  child.  If  it  is,  indeed,  proved 
that  the  child  about  two  years  old  recognises  or 
names  one  colour  with  more  certainty  than  an- 
other, it  is  allowable  to  infer  that  this  order  of 
more  or  less  correct  designation  corresponds  ex- 
actly to  the  order  of  acquisition  and  is  the  conse- 
quence of  it,  and  that  it  reveals  to  us  the  order 
of  evolution,  according  to  which  the  retina  has 
become  sensible  successively  to  different  colours. 
But,  without  being  exactly  identical,  since  the 
children  observed  by  Binet  recognised  red  most 
easily,  while  Preyer"s  son  named  yellow  with 
most  certainty,  the  results  of  these  two  series  of 
observations  seem  to  prove  that  these  two  col- 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SIGHT. 


119 


ours  affect  earliest  the  chromatic  sensibility  of 
children. 

Red  and  yellow,  the  very  colours  represented 
to  us  by  the  suppositions,  a little  imaginative,  to 
be  sure,  of  some  of  our  contemporary  evolution- 
ists, as  having  been  the  only  ones  perceived  by 
primitive  peoples  ! According  to  Hugo  Magnus, 
the  world  of  material  things  has  not  always  ap- 
peared to  man  with  the  colours  that  adorn  it  to- 
day, perfected  for  our  senses  by  heredity.  Two 
thousand  years  ago  humanity  would  not  have 
been  capable  of  perceiving  anything  but  the  ex- 
tremity of  the  solar  spectrum,  the  red,  the  orange, 
the  yellow,  without  being  able  to  distinguish  the 
green,  the  blue,  the  violet.  And  Hugo  Magnus 
pushes  the  paradox  to  the  point  of  claiming  that 
the  author  of  the  Homeric  poems,  as  well  as  the 
authors  of  the  Bible  and  the  sacred  books  of  India, 
had  so  little  perception  of  colour  as  to  see  only  red 
and  yellow  in  the  universe.  These  fancies  have 
been  justly  disposed  of  ; * it  has  been  shown  that 
in  the  pretended  insensibility  of  primitive  peo- 
ples respecting  certain  colours  there  is  mani- 
fested simply  a poverty  of  language  in  expressing 
sensations  which  are  nevertheless  distinct.  But 
without  intending  to  find  fault  with  Hugo  Mag- 
nus’s hypothesis  in  itself  as  a general  formula 
applicable  to  the  evolution  of  the  sense  of  col- 
ours in  humanity,  it  seems  at  least  to  express  the 
history  of  the  perception  of  colours  in  the  little 
child. 


Notably  in  Grant  Allen’s  work. 


120  the  development  of  the  child. 


If  the  eyes  of  the  newborn  child  seem  at  first 
to  be  indifferent  to  colours,  there  comes  a change 
at  the  end  of  a few  weeks.  The  first  time  richly 
coloured  objects  are  shown  him  the  sensation 
must  be  like  that  described  by  Wardrop  as  being 
produced  in  a person  born  blind  from  whose  eyes 
cataracts  were  successfully  removed ; the  visible 
world  agitated  him  greatly.  One  day/^  said 
Wardrop,  gave  him  some  new  clothes  of  very 
bright  colours ; he  was  delighted  beyond  all  ex- 
pression ; it  was  the  most  interesting  display  of 
sense  pleasure  that  I have  ever  seen."'  * The 
child  offers  us  what  Haeckel  has  called  a raw  " 
state  of  the  sense  of  colours ; he  is  not  sensible 
yet  to  delicate  shades,  to  mild  tints,  to  blue  or  to 
gray,  and  selects  by  preference  the  strong  colour- 
ing, which  later  will  shock  the  eyes  of  the  adult,  f 
A little  boy  spoken  of  by  Preyer  began  at  the 
age  of  four  months  to  prefer  bright  red  to  other 
colours. 

From  these  facts  we  conclude,  not  that  the 
child  is  incapable  of  perceiving  soft  colours,  but 
that  he  likes  them  less  than  the  strong  ones.  It 
is  probable,  however,  that  perception  and  taste 
go  together,  that  the  colours  the  child  likes  best 
are  at  the  same  time  the  first  perceived,  especial- 
ly as  the  natural  disposition  to  distinguish  red 

* See  Dugald  Stewart,  Elements  of  the  Philosophy  of  the 
Human  Mind,  vol.  i. 

t “ In  all  probability  the  child  a year  old  still  perceives 
green  and  blue  as  though  they  were  gray  ; in  any  case,  he  does 
not  distinguish  them  as  clearly  as  he  will  later.’’  (Preyer, 
p.  146.) 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SIGHT. 


121 


and  yellow  first  seems  to  be  explained  by  the  fact 
that  these  two  colours  correspond  to  the  longest 
and  the  most  powerful  waves  of  ether.  Let  us 
not  forget  that  the  red  is  the  first  ray  visible  in 
the  spectrum.  In  any  case,  as  has  been  demon- 
strated by  the  experiments  of  Thomas  Young 
and  of  Helmholtz,  since  the  nervous  elements 
impressed  by  the  elementary  colours  are  not 
equally  distributed  in  the  retina,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  sensibility  of  the  retina  is  devel- 
oped gradually  from  the  centre  to  the  periphery, 
we  have  some  right  to  affirm  that  there  is  in 
the  child  a progressive  evolution  of  the  sense  of 
colour. 

But  what  is  unquestionable,  and  would  be  a 
certain  a priori^  supposing  that  experiment  did 
not  furnish  us  with  a confirmation,  is  that  the 
child,  in  one  order  or  another,  very  soon  per- 
ceives the  principal  colours.  And  it  is  by  the 
colours  that  the  exterior  world  is  revealed  to  him 
and  becomes  the  object  of  visual  perceptions.  To 
the  child  the  universe  is  not  at  first  a collection 
of  solid  things,  each  independent  of  the  other, 
placed  at  different  distances  ; it  presents  itself  to 
him  only  as  an  extent  of  surface,  vari-coloured  like 
a picture,  in  which  all  sorts  of  things  are  painted. 
First  the  sensations  of  light,  then  sensations  of 
colour ; those  are  the  two  stages  which  vision 
passes  through  before  arriving  at  really  objec- 
tive perceptions.  There  is  a period  of  longer  or 
of  shorter  duration,  during  which  the  world  pre- 
sents to  the  child  only  bits  or  streaks  of  colour, 
which  form  for  his  eyes  a mosaic  of  different  col- 


122  the  development  op  the  child. 

ours.  What  goes  on  in  the  child^s  brain  at  this 
time  must  closely  resemble  the  impressions  which 
Kaspar  Hauser  declared  he  had  felt  when  one 
day,  soon  after  his  arrival  at  Nuremberg,  he  was 
taken  to  a window  at  the  top  of  a tower  and  told 
to  look  down  upon  the  landscape.  I had,^^  he 
said,  an  impression  analogous  to  that  which 
would  have  been  produced  by  a window  shutter 
very  close  to  my  eyes,  on  which  had  been  daubed 
blots  of  white,  blue,  green,  yellow,  and  red,  one 
next  to  the  other.  I could  not  then  distinguish 
and  recognise  the  separate  objects  as  I see  them 
to-day.""^ 

It  is  from  the  world  of  colours  that  the  child^s 
sight  passes  to  the  world  of  forms.  The  colour 
coincides,  indeed,  with  the  surface,  with  the  ex- 
tent of  two  dimensions,  and  by  the  sense  of  sight 
alone,  without  its  being  necessary  to  resort  to  the 
medium  of  touch,  without  feeling  the  corners  of 
objects  and  following  their  contour  with  his 
fingers,  the  child  recognises  the  form  of  things 
with  great  certainty.  Up  to  this  time  he  has  re- 
ceived only  sensations  of  sight,  which  are  almost 
exclusively  subjective  ; from  now  on,  through 
sight,  he  will  receive  knowledge — entirely  objec- 
tive perceptions.  Images  are  no  longer  sketched 
only  in  the  retina  and  in  the  optic  thalami ; they 
are  formed  in  the  brain  and  in  the  mind ; and 
these  images  soon  acquire  enough  precision  for 
the  child  to  be  able  to  distinguish  one  from  the 
other ; as  he  evidently  does,  as  soon  as  he  can 
recognise  persons  and  has  a different  welcome 
for  his  mother  or  his  nurse,  whose  appearance 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SIGHT. 


123 


calls  forth  a smile  of  joy,  and  for  the  stranger 
who  astonishes  and  frightens  him.  Preyer  states 
that  his  son  at  the  age  of  two  years  recognised 
the  photographs  of  people  who  were  familiar  to 
him.  But  long  before  this  the  child  greets  the 
persons  themselves  in  a very  significant  way, 
proving  that  he  remembers  their  faces,  and  that 
he  has  consequently  distinguished  them  in  his 
perceptions.  This  fact  is  explicable  only  on  one 
condition,  namely,  that  the  face,  the  stature,  the 
whole  body  of  these  persons,  have  left  a distinct 
impression  of  their  form  in  the  child.  Darwin 
says : At  the  age  of  four  months  the  baby 

showed  by  certain  signs  that  he  recognised  and 
distinguished  between  different  people.  At  four 
months  and  a half  he  often  smiled  on  seeing  my 
image  and  his  own  in  a mirror.^^  Likewise,  the 
child  observed  by  Preyer  at  six  months  looked 
attentively  at  the  reflection  of  his  father^’s  face  in 
a mirror,  then  turned  to  his  father  as  though  in- 
tending to  compare  the  image  with  the  original. 
Tiedemann  found  that  his  son,  when  in  his  fifth 
month,  turned  away  from  people  dressed  in  black 
with  plain  signs  of  repugnance  ; in  this  case  the 
sensation  of  colour  is  uppermost  in  the  visual 
impression.  But  this  same  child,  three  months 
afterward,  showed  evident  signs  of  affection  for 
people  that  he  knew,  and  in  this  case  it  was  the 
distinct  and  clear  'perception  that  guided  the 
affectionate  sensibility.  The  child  observed  by 
Cuignet  recognised  his  mother  at  two  months ; 
he  looked  at  her  attentively  and  smiled,  while  he 
did  not  smile  at  other  people,  and  already  hesi- 


124  the  development  of  the  child. 


tated  to  let  strangers  take  him  in  their  arms. 
We  might  multiply  examples  of  this  sort.  We 
have  all  seen  very  young  children  distinguish 
persons,  which  is  not  possible,  we  repeat,  except 
by  virtue  of  visual  images,  tracing  exactly  the 
portrait  of  these  persons. 

We  may  even  believe  that  the  child^s  percep- 
tion has  remarkable  exactness  in  this  work  of 
representing  lines  and  forms.  We  may  find  a 
proof  of  this  in  the  observations  undertaken  by 
Binet  concerning  the  appreciation  of  distances : * 
it  was  found  that  a little  girl  two  years  and  a 
half  old,  when  called  upon  to  look  in  turn  at 
lines  of  unequal  length,  noticed  even  very  slight 
differences,  and  showed  almost  as  much  precision 
in  a glance  as  would  a grown  person.  Nothing 
could  be  more  curious,’^  says  Binet,  than  to  see 
this  child  place  her  index  finger  on  each  one  of 
these  lines  with  such  certainty,  saying  each  time, 
‘ This  one  is  the  shortest,"  or  ^ That  one  is  the  long- 
est." ""  I do  not  deny  that  at  two  years  and  a half 
the  visual  perception  has  already  made  great 
progress,  and  that  we  can  not  infer  from  what 
happpens  at  this  age  that  like  conditions  exist 
at  the  age  of  ten  or  fifteen  months.  It  is  al- 
lowable to  suppose,  however,  that  the  child"s 
glance  becomes  very  early  quite  exact  and  pre- 
cise. It  is  a law  of  the  evolution  of  the  faculties 
that  the  lower  functions,  those  that  do  not  yet 
presuppose  reasoning,  attain  very  rapidly  an  ad- 
vanced degree  of  perfection.  ^ The  child,  who  is 


* Revue  philosophique,  1890,  vol.  xxx,  pp.  68  et  seq. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SIGUT. 


125 


so  visibly  inferior  to  the  adult  in  force  of  judg- 
ment and  in  power  of  abstraction^  shows  him- 
self to  be  almost  his  equal  when  it  is  a question 
of  seeing,  of  measuring  surfaces  and  lines  at  a 
glance,  and,  above  all,  of  representing  to  himself 
with  clearness  the  forms  of  realities. 

For  the  child,  moreover,  to  appreciate  dis- 
tances, like  a little  geometrician,  and  for  him  to 
represent  to  himself  by  a mental  drawing  either 
the  persons  or  things  that  he  knows,  there  is 
need,  to  be  sure,  of  something  more  than  the 
normal  development  of  the  nervous  and  of  the 
muscular  apparatus  which  constitute  the  material 
organs  of  sight : attention  must  interpose.  It  is 
the  lack  of  attention,  according  to  Binet,  that  has 
more  than  once  perverted  the  results  of  the  ex- 
periments to  which  he  has  submitted  his  children. 
And  not  only  attention,  but  curiosity,  sympathy, 
astonishment,  intellectual  and  moral  instincts 
which  are  sprouting  and  beginning  to  appear, 
play  an  important  part  in  the  progressive  devel- 
opment of  sight.  The  eyes  which  during  the 
first  months  do  not  open  wide  except  when  under 
control  of  a material  pleasure  (when  the  child  is 
nursing,  for  instance),  will  open  at  eight  or  nine 
months  under  the  influence  of  surprise.  There 
is  a first  period  during  which  the  child,  so  to 
speak,  sees  automatically  ; later  he  sees  intelli- 
gently, he  looks.  In  the  first  case  he  is  plunged 
in  a sort  of  vague,  torpid  contemplation ; in  the 
second  case  he  shows  a satisfied  countenance, 
which  reveals  the  intelligence,  and  it  is  then  only 
that  his  glance  becomes  beautiful. 


126  the  development  of  the  child. 


This  influence  of  moral  causes  stands  out 
forcibly  in  the  counter  proof  to  be  found  in  ex- 
amining idiotic  or  imbecile  children,  and  in  ascer- 
taining the  slowness,  the  deficiencies  of  the  sense 
of  sight.  Perception  presupposes  not  only  an 
action  produced  by  the  external  phenomena  on 
the  appropriate  organs : it  implies  also  a reaction 
of  the  brain,  or,  in  other  words,  of  the  intelligence 
and  of  feeling.  With  perfectly  healthy  organs  of 
sense,  the  idiot  and  the  imbecile  have  only  very 
imperfect  sight  in  their  childhood.  They  see,  but 
they  do  not  really  look  at  anything ; or,  on  the 
other  hand,  being  plunged  in  a dull  and  obstinate 
immobility,  they  do  not  know  how  to  change 
their  position  in  order  to  follow  objects  with 
their  eyes.  ^^However,^^  says  Sollier,*  apart 
from  the  fact  that  the  pupillary  modifications 
show  that  the  eye  itself  is  not  reached,  we  see 
them,  when  under  the  influence  of  an  appropriate 
excitant,  change  the  direction  of  their  glances.'’^ 
It  is  established,  then,  that  the  imperfections  of 
their  sight  result  from  that  which  the  inner  ac- 
tivity lacks,  the  intelligence  and  the  feeling  not 
being  sufficiently  developed  to  set  the  mechanism 
of  the  sight  in  motion. 


IV. 

There  remains  one  last  question  for  us  to  treat, 
that  of  the  visual  perception  of  distance  or  of 
space — a much  debated  question,  to  be  sure.  The 
nativists,  Muller,  Hering,  Giraud-Teulon,  to  cite 


Psychologic  de  I’idiot  et  de  Fimbecile,  p.  48. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SIGHT. 


127 


but  a few,  on  one  side,  and  the  empiristic  school,  as 
Helmholtz,  one  of  its  leaders,  has  called  it,  on  the 
other  side,  are  at  swords’  points  : the  one  holding 
that  the  perception  of  the  third  dimension  of  bodies 
and  of  distance  is  innate  in  man,  as  it  certainly  is 
in  animals,  and  that  it  follows  immediately  from 
the  play  of  the  hereditary  mechanism,  completely 
organized  from  birth;  the  others  affirming,  on 
the  contrary — and  we  believe  that  the  study  of 
the  child  bears  them  out — that  it  is  a more  or 
less  slow  acquisition  of  experience,  the  effect  of  a 
progressive  accommodation  of  the  sense  of  sight. 

Let  us  try  to  show  first  by  facts  that  the  per- 
ception of  space  is  not  given  to  the  child  im- 
mediately ; afterward  we  will  try  to  see  how 
this  perception  becomes  possible. 

Every  one  has  seen  how  the  child  gropes  and 
how  he  deceives  himself  when  it  is  a question  of 
appreciating  the  distance  of  objects.  Preyer  has 
noted  a great  many  observations  from  day  to 
day  showing  this  lack  of  power.  The  fourth 
month  the  child  stretches  out  his  hands  to  seize 
objects  that  are  distant  twice  the  length  of  his 
arm  from  him,  and  although  disappointed,  he 
tries  several  times  to  accomplish  his  purpose. 
At  one  year  he  holds  out  his  arms  toward  the 
lamp  in  a carriage  with  untiring  perseverance. 
At  twenty  months  he  seems  to  wish  to  throw 
himself  into  his  father’s  arms,  whom  he  perceives 
at  a second  story  window  of  the  house,  while  he 
himself  is  in  the  garden.*  If  the  child  could 


* The  Senses  and  the  Will,  pp.  54  et  seq. 


128  the  development  op  the  child. 

speak  and  interpret  his  actions^  he  would  say  to 
us  that  if  he  moves  his  hands  in  this  way  toward 
distant  objects,  it  is  because  he  believes  he  can 
grasp  them ; he  appreciates  their  size  and  their 
form,  but  he  is  incapable  of  judging  whether  they 
are  within  his  reach  or  not.  The  notion  of  distance 
does  not  yet  exist  in  him ; perspective  is  unknown 
to  him  ; he  does  not  yet  know  how  to  project,  to 
exteriorize,  so  to  speak,  at  the  required  distance, 
the  images,  however  clear  they  may  be,  of  the  ob- 
jects that  make  an  impression  upon  his  eyes. 

The  observations  made  upon  people  born 
blind,  who  at  least  can  express  what  they  feel 
when  they  see  for  the  first  time,  throw  a great 
deal  of  light  upon  this  question.  I know  that 
Cheselden  is  reproached  for  not  having  noted 
with  enough  exactness  the  facts  which  he  was 
the  first  to  discover.  But  his  statement  has  great 
value  nevertheless,  other  more  exact  experimen- 
ters having  come  after  him  and  having  established 
the  inability  of  the  blind  to  recognise  immediate- 
ly, as  soon  as  they  begin  to  see,  the  third  dimension 
of  extent  and  the  distance  of  objects.  The  first 
time  that  he  saw  clearly,^"  Cheselden  says  of  his 
blind  man  (he  neglects  to  say  how  many  days  it 
was  after  the  operation),  he  had  so  little  appre- 
ciation of  distances  that  he  imagined  that  all  ob- 
jects, whatever  they  were,  were  in  contact  with 
his  eyes,  ^ were  touching  his  eyes,’  as  he  said  him- 
self, just  as  everything  he  touched  was  in  con- 
tact with  his  skin.”*  Paul  Janet  claims  that 


* See  Philosophical  Transactions,  April,  May,  June,  1728. 


DEVELOPMENT  OP  SIGHT. 


129 


this  is  only  a metaphor,  a very  natural  one  in  a 
blind  person,  who  has  never  had  any  but  tactile 
impressions.  But,  fortunately  for  the  empiristic 
argument,  other  testimony  is  more  decisive. 
Such  is  that  of  a blind  person  operated  upon  at 
the  age  of  twelve  by  Everard  Home.  ''  Like  most 
of  those  that  are  born  blind,  this  boy  could  dis- 
tinguish daylight  from  artificial  light,  the  bright- 
ness of  the  sun  from  that  of  a lamp,  before  the 
operation,  and  he  said  that  it  seemed  to  him  that 
the  sun  touched  his  eyes;  which  was  not  sur- 
prising, the  sun  manifesting  itself  to  him  by  the 
intensity  of  its  light  and  not  by  the  appearance 
of  its  form.  But  when  he  had  been  operated  upon 
once  in  the  left  eye,  he  was  not  any  farther  ad- 
vanced in  this  respect.  When  the  operator  asked 
him  what  he  saw,  he  said,  ^ Your  head,  and  it  seems 
to  touch  my  eyes.'’  When  the  right  eye  had  been 
operated  upon,  experiments  were  not  begun  im- 
mediately. But  twenty-seven  days  after  the  second 
operation,  nearly  three  months  after  the  first,  it 
seemed  to  him  that  the  sun  and  all  other  objects 
were  still  very  near  him.'’^  * Wardrop  and  Franz 
have  collected  facts  analogous  to  this.  Wardrop, 
whose  observation  is  most  minute,  operated  upon 
a woman  forty-six  years  old  who  had  been  blind 
from  birth.  On  the  eighteenth  day  the  patient 
still  finds  great  difficulty  in  discovering  how  far 
objects  are  from  her ; when  an  object  is  placed 
near  her  eyes,  she  tries  to  grasp  it,  but  extends 
her  hand  far  beyond  it,  while  in  other  cases  she 


* Philosophical  Transactions,  1807,  i,  pp.  83-87. 


130  the  development  op  the  child. 


extends  her  hand  a very  short  distance  to  grasp 
objects  that  are  farther  away.*  We  find,  then,  in 
this  person,  though  elderly  and  intelligent,  the 
same  awkwardness  that  we  see  in  the  child  every 
day,  when  he  extends  his  hands  at  random  to 
grasp  what  is  out  of  his  reach.  Franz  performed 
experiments  in  1840  in  Leipsic  with  the  same  re- 
sult. Several  days  after  the  operation  that  gave 
him  his  sight,  the  patient,  seventeen  years  old, 
could  not  distinguish  a plane  surface  from  a 
solid.  cube  and  a sphere  are  placed  before 
him : he  declares  that  he  sees  a square  and  a disc. 
The  cube  is  removed  and  replaced  by  a disc  of 
the  same  dimensions  as  the  sphere : he  declares 
that  he  sees  two  discs.  Exterior  objects  seem  to 
him  to  be  so  near  him  that  he  is  sometimes  afraid 
of  striking  against  furniture  that  is  in  reality 
some  distance  from  him.  Although  he  had 
learned  by  touch  that  in  the  human  face  the 
nose  is  prominent  and  the  eyes  sunken,  the  hu- 
man face  seemed  to  him  as  he  looked  at  it  to  be 
a plane."^^  f In  a very  recent  observation  on  a 
girl  of  thirteen  who  had  been  born  blind,  it  was 
found  that  there  was  at  first  no  appreciation  of 
space,  and  eight  days  after  the  operation  it  was 
still  very  imperfect.  Four  or  five  days  after  the 
patient  had  recovered  sight  an  object  was  shown 
her  at  least  thirty  metres  away.  She  declared 
that  she  could  touch  it  with  her  hand,  and  ex- 
tended her  hand  to  grasp  it.^^  J 

* Philosophical  Transactions,  1826,  iii,  pp.  552-554. 

f Ibid.,  etc.,  1849,  i,  pp.  59-69. 

t Revue  philosophique,  January,  1889. 


DEVELOPMENT  OP  SIGHT. 


131 


We  have  insisted  upon  these  observations  be- 
cause they  are,  by  analogy,  characteristic  and 
convincing  from  the  point  of  view  with  which 
we  are  concerned.  A person  born  blind  is  really 
a child  as  far  as  sight  is  concerned  If,  on  the 
one  hand,  he  has  to  meet  with  more  unfavour- 
able conditions,  whether  because  the  operation 
that  he  has  undergone  has  given  him  sight  in 
only  one  eye,  or  because  his  diseased  and  painful 
organs  do  not  act  as  readily  or  with  the  same 
completeness  as  in  a naturally  healthy  sense,  it 
is  evident,  on  the  other  hand,  that  he  has  some 
advantages  over  the  child.  For  a long  time  he 
has  been  collecting  a large  number  of  tactile  ex- 
periences, which  can  at  once,  so  to  speak,  guide 
his  vision  ; besides,  the  band  that  covers  his  eyes 
is  almost  never  thick  or  opaque  enough  to  render 
them  absolutely  insensible  to  the  action  of  light. 
Those  whose  blindness  is  owing  merely  to  a 
lesion  of  the  crystalline  lens  can  even  recognise 
colours,  according  as  they  are  more  or  less  bril- 
liant or  striking ; and  this  perception,  although 
confused,  permits  them  in  a certain  degree  (the 
coloured  object  lighting  up  to  a greater  or  less 
extent  the  visual  field)  to  take  account  of  the 
limits,  the  dimensions  of  this  object,  to  judge 
even  if  it  is  very  near  or  far  away,  the  illumina- 
tion of  the  eye  being  more  or  less  intense.  The 
person  born  blind  has  the  superiority  over  the 
child  in  the  education  of  sight,  which  his  age, 
his  tactile  experience,  and  his  developed  reason 
assure  him.  From  what  we  find  in  him,  then,  we 
have  a right  to  infer  what  probably  takes  place 


132  the  development  of  the  child. 


in  the  child,  and  to  conclude,  a fortiori^  that  the 
latter  must  experience  at  least  equal  difficulties. 

There  remains  to  discover  how  the  mental 
construction  of  the  perception  of  distances  and 
of  the  depth  of  bodies  is  carried  on.  The  child 
will  show  us  himself,  if  we  observe  him  care- 
fully. Why  do  we  see  him  continually  turning 
objects  about  in  his  fingers  and  feeling  of  them, 
as  he  will  of  a box,  a glass,  or  a book  ? Because 
of  a secret  need  of  activity  certainly,  and  for  the 
pleasure  of  moving  his  hands ; but  also,  we  be- 
lieve, through  curiosity,  in  order  to  find  out,  by 
the  indications  of  touch,  the  contours  of  objects, 
their  nature  and  peculiarities.  And  while  the 
touch  perceptions  are  becoming  distinct,  sight, 
acting  at  the  same  time,  receives  varied  impres- 
sions. Different  images  correspond  to  different 
situations  of  the  bodies  that  are  felt  and  handled, 
not  only  by  reason  of  their  particular  form,  but 
also  because  of  their  position  in  space,  as  the 
child  holds  them  near  or  far  from  his  eyes. 
A correspondence,  an  association,  is  established 
slowly  between  the  data  of  the  two  senses ; so 
that  after  a number  of  experiences  the  child 
comes  to  interpret  the  visual  phenomena,  and 
to  take  them  as  signs  of  such  and  such  tactile 
knowledge. 

It  is  not  at  the  very  outset,  indeed,  that  the 
touch  perceptions  join  the  sight  perceptions,* 
and  adjust  themselves  to  form  the  notion  of  the 


* In  the  third  month  the  little  girl  observed  by  Taine  “be- 
gan to  feel  things  with  her  hands,  to  move  her  arms  to  reach 


DEVELOPMENT  OP  SIGHT. 


133 


dimensions  and  depth,  of  objects  in  the  child's 
mind.  The  blind  person  operated  upon  by  War- 
drop,  nearly  twenty  days  after  the  operation, 
could  not  yet  distinguish,  with  her  eyes  alone  a 
silver  pencil  and  a large  key,  although,  she  recog- 
nised them  perfectly  when  she  touched  them. 
So  Cheselden's  blind  man  had  to  look  very  at- 
tentively at  things  that  he  had  already  handled 
before  he  could  tell  what  they  were.  He  was 
obliged  to  feel  even  familiar  objects  again  be- 
fore establishing  clearly  a definite  association 
between  the  visual  image  and  the  tactile  repre- 
sentation. After  forgetting  often  which  was  the 
dog  and  which  the  cat,  he  was  ashamed  to  ask 
the  question  again,  and  taking  the  cat,  which  he 
recognised  by  touch,  he  looked  at  it  fixedly  for  a 
long  time ; then  placing  it  on  the  floor,  he  said. 
Well,  pussy,  henceforth  I shall  know  you  !" 

The  case  is  nearly  the  same  for  the  percep- 
tion of  distances.  Here,  too,  there  is  an  associa- 
tion established  between  the  visual  phenomena — 
greater  or  less  dimensions,  outlines  more  or  less 
defined,  colours  more  or  less  pronounced — and 
the  reality  of  the  distance.  We  have  some  right 
to  suppose  that  the  child  does  not  really  acquire 
the  notion  of  the  relative  distance  of  bodies  until 
he  can  walk,  and,  being  able  to  measure  the  dis- 
tance between  objects  by  traversing  it,  finds  that 
the  tree  becomes  larger  as  he  approaches  it,  that 
the  house  appears  smaller  and  smaller  the  farther 

objects,  beginning  to  associate  blots  of  colour  with  tactile  and 
muscular  impressions  of  distance  and  of  form.”  De  I’lntelli- 
gence,  book  ii,  chap.  ii. 


134  the  development  of  the  child. 


lie  goes  from  it.  But  the  child  can  appreciate 
the  variation  of  sensible  images,  in  its  connection 
with  the  relative  proximity  of  objects,  long  be- 
fore he  can  walk.  He  has  noticed  that  the  book 
that  is  within  his  reach  appears  to  him  in  other 
conditions  from  the  one  that  he  tries  in  vain  to 
grasp.  The  child  can  measure  small  distances 
by  simply  extending  his  arms,  and  so  begins  the 
long  work  which  will  allow  him  to  represent  the 
world  of  material  things  to  himself,  not  as  a 
plane  surface  but  as  a depth,  in  which  material 
things  are  placed  in  a succession  of  planes  at  dif- 
ferent distances  from  the  eye. 

The  visible  world,  as  we  can  not  repeat  too 
often,  presents  itself  to  the  child  at  first  only  as 
a picture  in  which  an  awkward  painter  has  dis- 
regarded the  laws  of  perspective,  and  has  not 
succeeded  in  producing  the  illusion  of  distance. 
It  is  only  little  by  little  that  things  draw  back, 
so  to  speak — locate  themselves  at  different  points 
in  space.  The  distribution  of  light  and  shade, 
the  strong  relief  of  the  nearer  objects,  the  gray 
tints  that  dull  the  outlines  of  those  farther  away, 
in  a word,  the  visual  phenomena,  thanks  to  ex- 
perience and  to  habit,  become  the  signs  of  pos- 
sible tactile  representations ; and  what  is  most 
remarkable — we  do  not  pretend  to  explain  it — 
these  signs  are  immediately  interpreted,  trans- 
formed even,  to  the  point  of  disappearing  from 
consciousness,  and  sight  seems  in  some  way  to 
grasp  of  itself,  in  the  original  text,  what  it 
really  does  not  perceive  except  by  a translation, 
by  means  of  the  experiences  of  touch  and  of  loco- 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  SIGHT. 


135 


motion.  The  natural  perceptions  of  sight  are  re- 
duced to  colour  and  extent  of  surface ; all  the 
rest  is  acquired.  And  if  we  grant  the  nativists 
this  fact,  which,  moreover,  does  not  seem  contro- 
vertible, that  the  motions  of  the  eyes  contribute  in 
small  part  to  the  perception  of  space ; if  we  admit, 
with  Maillet,*  that  the  feeling  of  the  effort  of 
convergence  of  our  eyes  (the  nearer  the  object  to 
be  seen  the  greater  the  convergence)  gives  us,  up 
to  a certain  point,  a vague  notion  of  distance,  it 
would  follow,  then,  that  sight  begins  by  itself, 
without  the  aid  of  touch,  the  construction  of 
space,  but  by  no  means  that  it  can  perfect  it 
without  that  aid. 


* Maillet,  Elements  de  psychologie  de  rhomme  et  de  Tenfant, 
p.  193. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


HEARING,  TASTE,  SMELL,  AND  TOUCH. 

I.  Hearing. — Temporary  deafness  of  the  newborn  child  : its 
causes. — First  auditory  sensations. — Insensible  progression 
and  intermediate  states. — Sounds,  from  childhood,  excite  the 
nerves  more  than  any  other  impressions. — Sounds  have  also, 
in  certain  conditions,  a moderating  power. — Rudiments  of 
the  musical  sensibility. — Noise  for  the  noise’  sake. — Impres- 
sion produced  on  the  child  by  the  human  voice. — Sensations 
and  impressions. — The  direction  and  distance  of  sound.  II. 
Taste  and  Smell. — Taste  impressions  the  first  to  appear. — 
The  tactile  sensibility  associated  with  the  gustatory  sensi- 
bility.— Distinction  of  different  tastes. — The  taste  for  sweets 
the  first  habit  of  the  child. — Repugnance  for  new  foods. — 
Natural  likes  and  dislikes. — Resemblance  between  taste  and 
smell. — The  general  inutility  of  sensations  of  smell  retards 
their  development. — Sensations  of  smell  are  the  weakest  of 
all  sensations. — They  are  of  account  only  when  superadded 
to  sensations  of  taste. — The  child  is  rather  inattentive  to 
odours  than  incapable  of  perceiving  them.  III.  Touch. — 
Particular  character  of  tactile  impressions. — Passive  and 
active  touch. — Impressions,  sensations,  and  perceptions. — 
Thermal  impressions. — Does  pleasure  accompany  the  first 
tactile  impressions  f — Pleasures  of  active  touch. — The  mus- 
cular sense. — The  notion  of  exteriority. — How  the  child 
comes  to  recognise  his  body  as  belonging  to  himself. — 
Pain  aids  him  in  distinguishing  the  subject  from  the 
object. 

I. 

The  development  of  the  sense  of  hearing  does 
not  by  any  means  involve  the  complications,  the 

136 


HEARING,  TASTE,  SMELL,  AND  TOUCH.  137 


delays  in  muscular  adaptation  and  arrangement, 
which  the  sense  of  sight  has  presented.  Doubt- 
less every  child  is  deaf  at  first ; but  this  tem- 
porary deafness  does  not  last  more  than  a few 
hours — a few  days  at  most — and,  moreover,  it  re- 
sults from  wholly  material  causes  ; so  that  these 
physical  obstacles  once  removed,  and  they  are 
rapidly,  the  child  enters  into  immediate  posses- 
sion of  the  sense  of  hearing  in  all  essential 
points. 

The  principal  reason  for  this  state  of  tempo- 
rary deafness  is  the  absence  of  air  in  the  tym- 
panum. In  order  that  the  child  may  hear,  it  is 
necessary  that  the  liquids  that  obstructed  this 
cavity  during  the  intra-uterine  life  should  flow 
out  and  make  room  for  the  atmospheric  air ; and 
it  is  owing  to  the  respiratory  motions  that  this 
exchange  takes  place.  There  is  no  longer  a ques- 
tion of  holding,  as  certain  physiologists  did  in  the 
gala  days  of  the  inneity  doctrine,  that " hereditary, 
innate  air  exists,^^  which  would  fill  the  ear  of  the 
new-born  child.*  Several  hours  at  least  of  respira- 
tion seem  to  be  necessary  to  completely  clear  the 
auditory  paths.  One  other  cause  assists  in  pre- 
venting at  first  the  full  play  of  the  operations  of 
hearing : it  is  the  closing  of  the  cavity  of  the  ear, 
whose  walls  are  so  firmly  joined  together  in  the 
beginning  that  the  sound  can  not  penetrate  to  the 
tympanum,  t 

But  these  material  obstacles  very  soon  disap- 


* Preyer,  The  Senses  and  the  Will,  p.  73. 
t It  is  probable,  also,  that  the  ossicles  which  transmit  the 
vibrations  communicated  by  the  membrane  of  the  tympanum 


138  the  development  OF  THE  CHILD. 

pear,  a little  sooner  in  one  case,  a little  later  in 
another,  while  the  individual  differences  are  not 
very  great.  Preyer,  who  has  studied  the  progress 
of  the  child^s  hearing  with  his  usual  conscien- 
tiousness, declares  that  it  was  not  until  the  morn- 
ing of  the  fourth  day  that  he  knew,  from  certain 
signs,  that  his  son^s  deafness  had  disappeared. 

As  long  as  he  was  warm  and  well  fed,  and  in  a 
comfortable  position,  I had  but  to  clap  my  hands 
or  to  whistle  to  make  his  eyes,  which  were  half 
closed,  close  completely.  As  this  occurred  in  the 
course  of  the  fourth  day,  when  nothing  like  it 
had  taken  place  on  the  third,  it  seemed  certain 
to  me  that  the  tympanum  had  not  begun  to 
act  until  the  fourth  day,  that  it  had  been  in- 
active up  to  that  time.'’^ *  * But  the  change  comes 
earlier  in  other  children,  and  from  the  second 
day,  sometimes  from  the  first,  characteristic  mo- 
ions,  such  as  the  w inking  of  the  eyes,  wrinkling 
the  forehead,  moving  the  arms,  show  us  that  the 
vibrations  of  the  sound  waves  have  penetrated 
into  the  canals  of  the  labyrinth  as  far  as  the  fibre 
of  the  auditory  nerve,  and  that  the  newborn  child 
is  sensitive  to  sound. 

To  what  extent  he  is  thus  sensitive,  through 
what  stages  hearing  passes,  how  auditory  acute- 
ness is  insensibly  developed  by  exercise,  in  what 
order  the  ear  comes  to  perceive  the  different 
qualities  of  sound,  it  is  almost  impossible  to 

to  the  fluid  contained  in  the  labyrinth  are  not  immediately  in 
a state  to  act,  and  that  some  time  is  necessary  for  their  move- 
ments to  be  performed  regularly. 

* See  The  Senses  and  the  Will,  pp.  81  et  seq. 


HEARING,  TASTE,  SMELL,  AND  TOUCH.  139 


know ; tho  only  signs  that  disclose  the  audi- 
tory sensations  to  the  observer  not  being  of  a 
nature  to  tell  of  the  shades,  the  proportions  of 
these  sensations,  and  revealing  to  us  but  this 
one  fact  in  the  rough,  that  the  child  hears.  It 
is  probable  that  the  total  deafness  of  the  first 
days  is  succeeded  by  intermediate  states  until 
the  hearing  faculty  is  perfected  ; the  organ  de- 
veloping and  being  strengthened  little  by  little, 
so  that  it  receives  sound  impressions  more  and 
more  intense  without  being  wounded  by  them. 
What  would  happen  if  from  the  very  first  day  a 
screech  or  a shrill  whistle,  or  a resounding  roar, 
could  affect  the  sensibility  to  the  extent  that  it 
will  affect  it  later  ? By  hearing  too  soon  the  child 
would  run  the  risk  of  not  hearing  at  all  for  the 
rest  of  its  life.  If  the  noise  of  a cannon  can  cause 
deafness  in  grown  people,  how  much  greater  rea- 
son is  there  that  sounds  too  intense,  if  felt,  should 
threaten  to  bruise,  to  injure  an  organ  so  delicate 
and  so  unexercised ; just  as  too  strong  a vibra- 
tion breaks  the  strings  of  a harp  or  a violin.  In 
any  case,  too  precocious  an  auditory  sensibility 
would  present  other  dangers : it  might  provoke 
excessive  excitement,  even  convulsions,  perhaps. 
Nature  has  wisely  protected  the  child  against  the 
shock  of  too  numerous  or  too  violent  sensations, 
in  leaving  him  dull  of  hearing  for  a few  weeks. 
This  relative  deafness  of  the  newborn  child,  like 
his  semi-blindness,  gives  the  organism  time  to 
consolidate,  so  to  speak,  so  that  it  may  be  able 
to  resist  later  the  force  and  multiplicity  of  sen- 
sations. It  is  to  the  child,  above  all,  that  these 


140  the  development  of  tee  child. 

words  of  Hartmann  can  be  applied  : What 

would  become  of  our  poor  souls  if  they  had  to 
respond  unceasingly  to  the  infinite  multitude  of 
excitations  constantly  in  play  about  us  ? 

From  the  first  days  of  childhood,  however, 
hearing  appears  with  the  characteristics  which 
this  sense  will  keep  all  through  life ; its  impres- 
sions move  the  nerves  most  quickly,  and  excite 
most  profoundly  the  inmost  emotions  of  the  soul. 
At  every  age,  as  we  know,  sound  far  surpasses 
form,  and  even  colour,  as  the  agent  of  excitation. 
There  is  something  penetrating  and  keen,  we  can 
not  tell  what,  in  every  kind  of  sound  (I  do  not 
speak  of  the  human  voice  alone),  that  affects  us 
with  greater  intensity  than  the  most  highly  col- 
oured and  most  striking  images  possibly  could. 
And  at  the  same  time,  by  a singular  privilege,  if 
sounds  are  at  all  sweet  and  caressing,  or  harmo- 
nious, they  have  the  virtue  of  calming,  of  stilling 
passions,  and  of  establishing  a sort  of  happy  quiet 
in  the  soul. 

Facts  show  that  the  child  feels,  from  these 
two  points  of  view,  the  particularly  strong  action 
of  auditory  impressions.  The  least  noise  very 
soon  makes  the  newborn  child  start.  During 
the  first  week,^^  says  Darwin,  my  little  child 
started  and  winked  his  eyes  on  hearing  a noise. 
When  he  was  sixty-six  days  old  I happened  to 
sneeze  near  him.  He  moved  quickly,  contracted 
his  brows,  seemed  to  be  frightened,  and  cried. 
For  a whole  hour  he  was  in  what  would  be  called 
a nervous  state  in  a grown  person."^  To  be  sure, 
the  new  objects  that  strike  the  child's  sight  have 


HEARING,  TASTE,  SMELL,  AND  TOUCH.  141 


also  the  effect  of  provoking  motions  of  surprise 
and  starts  of  fear ; nevertheless,  as  Darwin  has 
also  observed,  sounds  startle  the  child  much 
more  frequently,  and,  we  shall  add,  much  more 
violently,  than  do  the  sensations  of  sight. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  all  seen  the  sooth- 
ing power  which  the  auditory  impressions  in 
certain  cases  and  under  certain  conditions  exer- 
cise upon  the  child's  sensibility.  His  cries  yield 
to  the  sound  of  his  mother's  voice ; his  tears  are 
dried  by  the  songs  of  his  nurse.*  And  it  seems 
that  the  aesthetic  sense — under  the  form  of  a 
rudimentary  taste  for  music — is  aroused  more 
quickly  in  the  case  of  hearing  than  in  that  of 
the  other  senses.  When  one  month  and  a few 
days  old,  Tiedemann's  son  heard  the  piano  for 
the  first  time,  and  seemed  delighted  by  it.  Preyer 
has  noticed  the  progress  of  this  musical  sensi- 
bility : The  sixth  week,"  he  says,  the  child 

became  quiet  and  opened  his  eyes  wide  when  he 
heard  his  mother  sing.  The  eighth  week  he 
showed  his  satisfaction  on  hearing  a piece  ren- 
dered on  the  piano  by  a particularly  attentive 
look,  by  lively  motions  of  the  arms  and  of  the 
legs,  by  laughter  and  smiles.  The  thirteenth 
week  it  became  easy  to  attract  the  child's  atten- 
tion with  single  notes,  chords,  or  scales  ; he  be- 
came quiet  as  soon  as  he  heard  them,  in  the  midst 
of  the  most  violent  crises,  and  took  on  an  air  of 
rapt  attention,  f 

* When  the  child  observed  by  Espinas  was  one  month  and 
two  days  old,  he  could  be  quieted  by  the  songs  of  his  nurse ; as 
soon  as  she  became  quieted  he  began  crying  again. 

t See  The  Senses  and  the  Will,  pp.  84  et  seq. 


142  the  development  of  the  child. 

However,  we  must  not  exaggerate  the  child^s 
musical  taste.  It  is  doubtless  sweet  intonations, 
humming  of  songs,  that  succeed  of tenest  in  calm- 
ing him.  Doubtless,  too,  he  will  prefer  rhythm, 
cadence,  harmony ; but  the  sound  in  itself  pleases 
him,  whatever  may  be  its  quality ; he  likes  the 
noise  because  it  is  a noise.  As  soon  as  his  organs 
are  strong  enough  to  support  it,  the  intensity  of 
the  sound  is  a pleasure  to  him.  What  deafens 
us,  and  seems  loud  and  brawling,  delights  him, 
perhaps  because  he  is  accustomed,  by  his  own 
piercing  cries,  to  the  most  discordant  sounds,  but, 
above  all,  because  every  excitation  is  agreeable 
to  the  nascent  sensibility,  and  the  stronger  it  is 
the  more  agreeable  it  is.  With  children  as  with 
savages,  there  can  be  no  question  of  taste,  which 
presupposes  a work  of  selection,  a reflective  judg- 
ment, which  primitive  nature  does  not  permit. 

It  is  no  less  true,  however,  that  if  the  child  is 
amused  by  all  noises,  he  is  charmed  by  harmo- 
nious and  musical  sounds.  It  is  hearing  that 
first  arouses  in  the  child  a vague  sense  of  order, 
of  regularity,  and  consequently  of  beauty.  It  is 
hearing,  also,  that  first  seems  to  emancipate  his 
intelligence.  We  have  said  that  the  child,  at  the 
end  of  a few  months,  recognises  familiar  persons, 
their  faces,  and  their  physiognomy  ; but  the  au- 
ditory impressions  have,  I believe,  the  advantage 
over  visual  impressions  in  this  respect.  When 
one  month  old  the  child  observed  by  Cuignet  did 
not  recognise  any  one  by  sight ; it  mattered  little 
to  him  who  carried  him,  who  took  him  in  their 
arms ; but  he  already  distinguished  his  mother^s 


HEARING,  TASTE,  SMELL,  AND  TOUCH.  I43 


voice.  The  verse  of  the  poet  should  be  modified 
to  read : 

Incipe,  parve  puer,  lingua  cognoscere  matrem  ! 

The  human  voice — above  all,  the  mother  voice — 
which  is  like  the  appeal  of  the  active  intelligence 
to  the  dormant  intelligence,  is  perhaps  the  quick- 
est of  all  sensible  impressions  in  finding  its  way 
to  the  child^s  attention.  Natural  affinities  ex- 
plain this  particular  power,  but  we  may  remark 
further,  that  the  human  voice  being  the  sound 
that  the  child  has  most  frequent  occasion  to  hear, 
he  very  soon  becomes  familiar  with  it.  Finally, 
it  is  the  mother's  word  that  sounds  nearest  the 
ear  of  the  newborn  child,  and  penetrates  it  most 
sweetly  during  the  long  hours  passed  together. 

Some  time,  moreover,  will  be  required  for  the 
impression  of  the  human  voice  itself  to  become 
more  than  a confused  sensation,  to  become  a dis- 
tinct perception.  The  child  would  learn  to  speak 
much  more  rapidly  than  he  does  if  he  were  able 
at  the  start  to  distinguish  the  different  articu- 
lations. The  difficulty  in  reproducing  sounds, 
which  he  finds  at  first,  does  not  result  merely 
from  the  inexperience  of  the  vocal  organ ; it  is 
owing  in  part  to  the  vagueness,  the  lack  of  pre- 
cision in  the  first  perceptions  of  hearing,  which 
is  at  the  beginning  sensitive  above  all  to  the  in- 
tensity, to  the  pitch  or  to  the  tonality  of  sounds, 
but  which  comes  only  little  by  little  to  distin- 
guish tone  and  articulation. 

Hearing  does  not  at  once  perceive  the  distance 
and  direction  of  sound.  Espinas,  to  be  sure,  says 
that  he  saw  a child  seven  days  old  raise  toward 


14:4  the  development  of  the  child. 

a person  who  spoke-  aloud  very  near  him.  But 
in  this  case  it  was  easy  to  recognise  the  direction 
of  the  voice,  since  the  person  speaking  was  only 
a few  steps  away,  and  was  directly  in  front  of 
the  child.*  If  the  sound  comes  from  a distance 
the  difficulty  is  greater,  and  the  child  does  not 
overcome  it  easily,  although  he  is  aided,  as  we 
all  are,  by  the  fact  that  the  organ  of  hearing  is 
double,  and  the  sound  waves,  according  to  their 
origin  and  their  source,  impress  one  ear  more 
strongly  than  the  other.  Darwiffis  son,  in  spite 
of  his  sensibility  to  sounds  in  general,  even  at 
the  age  of  four  months  could  not  easily  recog- 
nise the  direction  of  a sound  so  as  to  turn  his 
eyes  toward  its  source.  We  must  not  forget 
that  in  order  to  find  the  direction  of  a sound  it 
is  necessary  to  begin  by  feeling  a need  of  seeking 
for  it ; and  the  little  child  is  not  yet  sufficiently 
dominated  by  the  instinct  of  causality  to  have  an 
idea  of  inquiring  into  the  cause  of  any  noise  that 
he  hears. 

The  case  is  the  same  in  the  perception  of  dis- 
tance, which  comes  only  from  experience  and 
from  reasoning.  We  judge  that  a sound  that 
we  have  heard  several  times  before  is  near,  if  it 
is  strong ; that  it  is  far  away,  if  it  is  weak.  But 
it  is  impossible  to  demand  this  appreciation,  only 
approximate  at  best,  of  the  child,  as  long  as  his 
hearing,  on  the  one  hand,  is  not  sensitive  enough 

* At  two  months  and  a half,  the  little  girl  observed  by  Taine 
recognised  manifestly  the  direction  of  certain  sounds — for  in- 
stance, hearing  the  voice  of  her  grandmother,  she  turned  her 
head  toward  her. 


EEARING,  TASTE,  SMELL,  AND  TOUCH.  145 


to  discern  easily  the  relative  intensity  of  sounds, 
and  his  judgment,  on  the  other  hand,  is  not 
strong  enough  to  draw  a conclusion  from  the 
degree  of  intensity  as  to  the  difference  in  dis- 
tance. Just  as  Cheselden's  blind  man  saw  ob- 
jects as  though  very  near  his  eyes,  perhaps  in  his 
eyes,  so  a deaf  person  who  should  suddenly  re- 
ceive his  hearing  would  imagine,  doubtless,  that 
the  sounds  he  heard  were  touching  his  ears. 

II. 

If  we  had  followed  the  chronological  order  in 
the  study  of  the  child's  sensations  and  percep- 
tions, we  should  have  begun  with  the  sense  of 
taste.*  Apart  from  a few  vague  tactile  impres- 
sions which  have  preceded  them  (and  that  from 
the  intra-uterine  life),  the  sensations  of  taste  are 
certainly  the  first  to  appear.  The  sense  of  taste 
is  formed  and  ready  to  act  from  the  time  of  birth. 
We  should  not  expect  any  ulterior  development 
of  so  simple  an  organism,  since  it  includes  only 
the  tongue,  the  mucus  that  covers  it,  and  the 
nerves  whose  ramifications  are  spread  out  there. 
At  the  first  contact  with  a sapid  substance,  then, 
the  sense  acts  immediately.  And  whereas  the 
need  of  nourishment  and  the  instinctive  motions 


* “ The  functions  of  taste  and  of  smell  hold  the  first  place  in 
the  animal  life  ; the  newborn  child  makes  use  of  them  from  the 
beginning,  without  groping,  without  experience  ; he  first  smells 
milk,  desires  it,  and  tastes  it.  These  are  the  first  purposes, 
brought  with  him  on  his  entrance  into  the  world.” — (Maine  de 
Biran,  Fondements  de  la  Psychologie,  part  ii,  sec.  ii.) 


146  the  development  op  the  child. 

of  Slicking  will  keep  the  child  at  his  mother^s 
breast,  agreeable  impressions  of  taste  will  en- 
courage this  effort  and  contribute  by  a sensible 
excitation  to  the  accomplishment  of  an  essential 
function.  Without  wishing  to  exaggerate  the 
importance  of  final  causes,  it  is  difficult  not  to 
recognise  in  this  co-ordination  of  different  means 
for  a common  end  the  intention  of  a benevolent 
and  far-seeing  Nature. 

Not  only  nourishment,  then,  but  also,  we  may 
almost  affirm,  the  first  pleasure,  the  first  sensa- 
tion comes  to  the  child  from  his  mother^s  breast. 
This  sensation,  moreover,  is  not  one  exclusively 
of  taste  ; touch,  too,  has  its  part  here ; the  tongue 
and  the  lips  possess  a very  keen  sensibility  to 
touch.  And  it  is  perhaps  by  pressing  the  moth- 
er’s nipple  in  his  mouth  that  the  child  acquires 
also  the  first  confused  notion  of  exteriority. 

We  should  not  dare  to  affirm,  however,  that 
the  action  of  sucking,  and  the  gustatory  impres- 
sions resulting  from  it,  are  at  the  outset  accom- 
panied by  consciousness.  It  is  by  a wholly  in- 
stinctive impulse  that  the  child  moves  his  head 
or  his  lips  to  get  nearer  the  source  of  his  life,  and 
the  continued  repetition  of  an  act  entirely  me- 
chanical to  begin  with  is  probably  necessary  in 
order  that  consciousness  should  appear.  But 
there  is  no  doubt  that  the  child  very  soon  dis- 
tinguishes the  particular  taste  of  the  milk  with 
which  he  is  fed  from  all  other  tastes. 

We  frequently  see  nurslings  that  can  not  ac- 
custom themselves  to  a new  nurse ; and  although 
the  impressions  of  smell,  not  to  speak  of  the  hab- 


HEARING,  TASTE,  SMELL,  AND  TOUCH.  147 


its  of  general  sensibility,  can  in  part  explain  this 
repulsion,  it  is  certain  that  the  sense  of  taste  is 
the  principal  cause  of  it.  Just  as  we  notice  it  if 
the  wine  served  to  us  to-day  is  not  the  same  that 
we  had  yesterday,  so  the  child  perceives  imme- 
diately that  there  has  been  a change  in  the  milk 
with  which  he  is  fed.  I remember  with  what 
grieved  energy  a child  that  I used  to  see  refused 
the  milk  offered  him  in  the  bottle  if  it  was  not 
quite  so  sweet  as  usual.  Sucking  being  the  es- 
sential act  in  which  almost  the  entire  life  of  the 
newborn  child  is  centred,  it  is  in  this  circle  of 
impressions  that  the  faculty  of  comparison  be- 
tween different  sensations  is  developed,  and  it  is 
here  also  that  the  force  of  habit  has  its  begin- 
ning. Indeed,  if  the  child,  while  a nursling  and 
after  the  weaning,  shows  a marked  preference 
for  sweets,  it  is  not  only  a matter  of  instinct 
and  of  innate  tastes,*  nor  because  the  organism 


* We  do  not  hesitate  to  recognise  what  there  is  of  the  in- 
stinctive and  innate  in  the  child’s  liking  for  a sweet  taste,  and 
consequently  his  liking  for  milk.  There  is  an  old  experiment 
made  by  Galieno  which  seems  decisive  in  the  case  of  animals. 
He  chose  a newborn  goat,  one  that  had  not  taken  suck ; he 
placed  it  before  a row  of  vessels,  all  alike,  each  one  filled  with  a 
different  substance : milk,  wine,  oil,  honey,  and  meal.  The  goat 
smelled  each  vessel,  but  chose  the  one  containing  the  milk,  Ro- 
manes, who  cites  this  experiment,  concludes  from  it  that  there 
can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  hereditary  memory  or  instinct  in  the 
goat,  and  adds  that  it  is  probably  the  same,  in  part  at  least,  in 
the  case  of  the  child.  In  support  of  this  hypothesis  he  cites 
Professor  Kussmaul’s  experiments,  according  to  which  newborn 
children,  even  before  having  taken  the  breast,  “ show  a prefer- 
ence for  sweet  tastes.  . . . Moisten  a child’s  tongue  with  a sweet 
11 


148  the  development  of  the  child. 


demands  the  sugar,  so  to  speak,  by  a sort  of  nat- 
ural appetite ; it  is  partly  habit  that  determines 
the  preference — the  habit  of  an  alimentation  al- 
ways the  same,  uniformly  pleasant  and  sweet, 
which  will  render  the  transition  to  another  kind 
of  nourishment  diflScult  and  painful. 

It  is  to  be  remarked,  indeed,  that  the  child, 
when  once  weaned,  will  almost  always  show  a 
sort  of  apprehension  and  a repugnance,  at  least 
transitory,  when  new  foods  are  offered  him. 
Even  those  that  he  will  like  best  when  he  has 
tasted  them  several  times  he  is  almost  sure  to 
repel  at  first.  Every  sensation  of  taste  to  which 
the  child  is  unaccustomed  disconcerts  him  to  a 
far  greater  degree  than  the  new  impressions  of 
sight  or  of  hearing  Preyer  found  this  to  be  so 
with  his  son  at  the  age  of  a year  and  a half,  and 
still  so  at  four  years.  He  shook  his  head  and 
closed  his  eyes  every  time  a new  dish  was  offered 
him ; his  face  took  on  an  expression  of  astonish- 
ment ; and  yet  the  food  was  pleasing  to  him,  as 
he  asked  for  it  often  after  that  with  an  expres- 
sion of  satisfaction.^^  Habit  holds  tyrannical  sway 
over  the  tastes  and  dislikes  of  children ; and  the 
proof  of  this  is  in  the  astonishing  differences 
which  the  sensibility  of  adults  themselves  offer, 
from  this  point  of  view ; a dish  that  nauseates 
some  being,  on  the  contrary,  the  favourite  of 
others. 

solution  and  he  will  show  satisfaction,  but  do  the  same  with  salt 
solutions,  with  vinegar  or  quinine,  and  he  will  make  all  sorts  of 
faces.”  Although  we  wish  to  give  instinct  its  due,  still  wo  be- 
lieve that  it  must  take  account  of  habit  also. 


HEARING,  TASTE,  SxMELL,  AND  TOUCH.  I49 


Still,  while  admitting  that  there  may  be  tastes 
almost  indifferent  in  themselves,  and  that  the 
habits  of  alimentation  alone  make  them  relished 
or  detested,  we  do  not  believe  any  the  less  that, 
naturally  and  instinctively,  the  taste  of  every 
little  child  distinguishes  between  agreeable  and 
disagreeable  impressions.  The  nurse  in  Romeo 
and  Juliet  * tells  how  she  had  covered  her  breast 
with  wormwood  when  she  weaned  Juliet,  and 
how  the  child  turned  from  her  breast  in  disgust. 
But  before  the  weaning,  from  the  very  first  days, 
bitter,  sour,  salt  tastes  provoke  motions  of  repul- 
sion, expressions  of  displeasure  in  the  newborn 
child.  Whereas  he  eagerly  sucks  a piece  of  su- 
gar, he  forcibly  rejects  medicine.  Later,  marked 
partialities,  invincible  repugnances  will  accen- 
tuate themselves  still  further.  We  have  seen  a 
child  four  years  old,  usually  very  docile,  who 
would  not  yield  to  any  prayer,  to  any  threat, 
when  being  urged  to  eat  some  green  peas.  And 
this  instinct  of  violent  repulsion  is  so  powerful 
that  the  mere  sight  of  dishes  that  the  child  dis- 
likes will  sometimes  cause  a really  angry  scene ; 
at  the  least,  the  child  will  put  his  hand  before  his 
eyes  to  escape  seeing  the  food  that  displeases  him. 
As  far  as  we  are  concerned,  we  have  never  ob- 
served the  effects  of  that  happy  and  easy  verbal 
suggestion  which  Preyer  claims  to  have  success- 
fully employed,  when,  to  induce  his  son  to  take 
a certain  dish,  he  simply  said,  emphatically,  It 
is  good  ; and  the  child,  convinced,  found  it  good. 


* Act  i,  scene  iv. 


150  the  development  of  the  child. 


Although  fancy  plays  a great  part  in  the  impres- 
sions of  taste,  daintiness  that  might  be  corrected, 
habits  that  might  have  been  moderated,  still  we 
shall  find  a firm  foundation  derived  from  inne- 
ity  or  from  heredity,  of  dislikes  or  instinctive  ap- 
petites. Preyer  is  more  correct  when  he  seems  to 
be  putting  himself  in  contradiction  with  himself, 
and  declares  that  a practical  rule  should  be  laid 
down  never  to  oblige  a little  child  to  take  a food 
whose  taste  does  not  please  him.* 

Smell  works  in  collaboration  with  taste,  and 
these  two  senses  whose  organs  are  such  near 
neighbours,  locally  speaking,  have  a great  simi- 
larity between  them.f  The  olfactory  apparatus 
is  also  very  simple : a membrane  covering  the  in- 
side of  the  nose  and  a special  nerve  spreading  out 
over  it.  It  would  seem  natural,  then,  that  the 
development  of  the  sensations  of  smell  should  bo 
as  rapid,  as  precocious,  as  is  that  of  the  sensations 
of  taste  ; and  it  would  probably  be  so  if  they  were 
as  useful.  Utility — that  is  to  say,  adaptation  to 
an  end  which  the  needs  of  Nature  demand — is 
the  great  agent  of  acceleration  in  the  evolution 
of  functions,  as  in  the  development  of  organs. 
And  that  is  why  the  sensations  of  smell,  whose 
general  uselessness  in  human  life  is  hardly  to  be 


* The  Senses  and  the  Will,  p.  127. 

t There  is  no  certainty  that  there  is  any  differentiation  in 
the  very  beginning  between  the  two  senses.  Perhaps  at  first 
there  are  not  both  odours  and  tastes,  but  taste-odours — the 
odour  of  milk,  for  instance,  joined  to  the  taste  of  milk.  When 
a flower  is  presented  to  a child  for  him  to  smell  it  he  opens  his 
mouth.  (See  Perez,  p.  18.) 


IIEAKIMG,  TASTE,  SMELL,  AND  TOUCH.  151 


doubted,  wliile  they  are,  on  the  contrary,  so  im- 
portant in  animals,  are  so  little  developed  in  man, 
and  so  slowly  developed  in  the  child.  The  new- 
born cliild^s  indifference  to  odours  results  from 
the  same  principle  as  the  marvellous  power  of 
scent  in  the  case  of  dogs.  Condillac  did  not 
trouble  himself  at  all  with  the  natural  order  of 
evolution  of  the  sensible  faculties,  or,  in  any 
case,  he  did  not  respect  it,  when,  in  animating 
his  statue,  he  made  it  begin  by  smelling  a rose. 
Roses  and  flowers  speak  only  to  the  child^s  eyes 
at  flrst  by  their  shape  and  form  ; their  perfumes 
do  not  affect  him.  Rousseau  saw  this.  He  says. 
It  is  certain  that  the  sense  of  smell  is  dull  and 
almost  lacking  in  most  children.^^  * 

The  flrst  reason  to  give  for  this,  as  we  have 
said,  is  that  sensations  of  smell  are  the  most  use- 
less of  all  sensations.  Colours  in  themselves  are 
useless  also,  but  colours  are  coexistent  with  ex- 
tent ; they  are  received  with  the  forms  and  con- 
tribute consequently  to  the  knowledge  of  the  ex- 
terior world.  The  odorous  emanations  of  things, 
on  the  contrary,  teach  us  nothing,  or  almost  noth- 
ing of  the  nature  of  objects.  They  float  about  in 
the  air ; they  lack  foundation,  so  to  speak.  Ex- 
cept in  the  case  of  food  (and  we  shall  see  im- 
mediately that  on  this  point  the  rule  that  we 
establish  admits  of  an  exception),  they  serve  for 
no  more  in  the  satisfaction  of  material  life  f than 

* Emile,  book  ii.  Rousseau,  moreover,  gives  this  strange 
reason  for  it  that  smell  is  the  sense  of  the  imagination. 

f It  is  because  they  are,  on  the  contrary,  of  the  greatest 
utility  in  animal  life  that  the  sensations  of  smell  are  so  devel- 


152  the  development  of  the  child. 


they  contribute  to  the  development  of  intelli- 
gence and  to  satisfy  curiosity.  They  are  the 
weakest  of  all  sensible  impressions  in  the  child, 
as  they  always  will  be.  They  will  never  disturb 
the  sensibility  to  any  great  extent,  at  most  they 
can  but  caress  it,  so  to  speak,  when  they  are 
agreeable,  and  offend  it  slightly  in  the  opposite 
case.  Finally,  they  are  of  no  value  in  themselves, 
and  are  of  account  only  when  added  to  other  im- 
pressions ; they  perfume  the  flower  that  we  take 
pleasure  in  seeing,  the  fruit  that  we  like  to  taste. 

It  is  precisely  under  this  last  form,  as  an  ele- 
ment added  to  the  impression  of  taste,  that  smell 
affects  the  child.  There  is  no  doubt  that  what 
we  call  an  appetizing  odour  excites  the  sensi- 
bility of  the  nursling  when  he  is  no  longer 
hungry.  The  sense  of  smell  being  so  closely 
connected  with  the  sense  of  taste  that  we  can  not 
taste  anything  without  smelling  it  at  the  same 
time,  the  two  sets  of  sensations  are  intermin- 
gled, are  confused,  and  mutually  excite  each 
other.  It  is  probable  that  smell,  rather  than  the 
remembrance  of  former  impressions,  guides  and 
attracts  the  newborn  child  when,  placed  near  his 
mother's  breast,  he  turns  quickly  to  grasp  it.* 

oped  in  the  carnivorous  animals,  and  especially  in  the  dog. 
Romanes  cites  the  instance  of  a dog  which  he  tried  to  lose  on 
a public  promenade  one  fete  day.  He  made  a great  many  turns 
and  detours  in  his  path,  then  sat  down  on  a bench  and  waited 
When  the  dog  found  that  his  master  was  no  longer  at  his  side, 
he  returned  to  the  place  where  he  had  seen  him  for  the  last 
time,  and  then,  finding  his  scent  again,  he  followed  him  in  all 
the  zigzags  he  had  made  until  he  came  up  with  him. 

* Compare  Preyer,  The  Senses  and  the  Will,  p.  133.  “ The 


HEARING,  TASTE,  SMELL,  AND  TOUCH.  153 


Peroz  tells  of  children  several  weeks  old  who  re- 
fused to  go  to  a new  nurse  simply  because  the 
odour  of  her  breath  or  of  her  person  affected 
them  disagreeably.* *  Finally,  smell  plays  a great 
part,  assuredly,  in  the  dislikes  or  preferences 
which  children  evince  for  such  or  such  food. 

It  is  important  to  notice,  moreover,  that  in 
the  case  of  the  little  child  there  is  a lack  of  at- 
tention in  respect  to  odours  rather  than  a lack 
of  the  power  of  smelling  them.  The  experiments 
cited  by  Preyer  prove  this  beyond  a doubt.  He 
says : Kiissmaul  has  seen  that  newborn  children^ 

even  when  asleep,  show  their  sensitiveness  to 
odour,  if  the  fumes  of  asafoetida,  for  instance, 
are  placed  under  their  nose : they  quickly  shut 
their  eyelids  tight,  wrinkle  up  their  faces,  be- 
come restless,  move  their  arms  and  head,  wake 
up,  then  fall  asleep  again  when  the  fumes  have 
passed  away.^^  Genzmer  has  obtained  analogous 
results.  To  complete  these  observations  Preyer 
asks  that  nurses  shall  come  to  his  assistance,  that 
they  shall  put  some  strong-smelling  substance 
either  on  the  outside  of  the  bottle  or  even  on 
their  breast.  ^^Such  investigation,^\he  adds,  ^Gs 
very  desirable.'’^  And  he  seems  to  have  succeed- 
ed already  in  persuading  people  to  do  it,  for  he 
speaks  of  a little  girl  two  days  old  who  obstinate- 
ly refused  the  breast  when  it  had  been  previous- 

disinclination  of  many  infants,  in  the  first  week,  to  take  cow’s 
milk  after  they  have  had  the  breast  must  be  ascribed  to  smell 
rather  than  to  taste,  since  they  sometimes  discard  the  cow’s  milk 
without  tasting  it.” 

* Perez,  p.  38. 


154  the  development  of  the  child. 

ly  sprinkled  with  petroleum.  Preyer  concludes, 
nevertheless,  as  we  do,  that  the  olfactory  im- 
pressions are  slow  in  manifesting  themselves 
clearly.  At  seventeen  months  his  son  could  not 
distinguish  odours  and  tastes,  and  when  hyacinth 
blossoms  were  given  him  to  smell,  he  put  them 
up  to  his  mouth  instead  of  to  his  nose.  Not  until 
the  fifteenth  month  did  eau  de  Cologne  give  him 
any  pleasure.*  And  finally,  to  end  with  a more 
important  observation,  it  is  only  when  he  is  chal- 
lenged, when  odorous  substances  are  placed  di- 
rectly under  his  nose  that  the  child  feels  and 
smells  them ; he  does  not  seem  disposed  to  look 
for  this  sort  of  sensation  himself,  and  there  is 
not,  so  to  speak,  any  active  spontaneity  in  the 
sense  of  smell. 


III. 

Touch  is  presented  under  the  most  favourable 
conditions  for  a broad  and  immediate  develop- 
ment, and  tactile  impressions  are  at  the  disposal 
of  the  child  from  the  start.  In  the  first  place, 
the  apparatus  is  still  less  complicated  than  that 
of  smell  or  of  taste,  since  it  is  composed  simply 
of  nerves  ending  in  the  skin.  At  the  same  time 
the  tactile  sensibility  is  spread  out  over  the  en- 
tire surface  of  the  body,  although  in  very  differ- 
ent degrees  : the  tongue,  the  lips,  the  hands,  and, 
above  all,  the  fingers,  being  particularly  endowed. 
Besides,  the  operation  that  brings  the  sense  of 
touch  into  play  is  most  simple — a mechanical 


Preyer,  pp.  131  seq. 


HEARING,  TASTE,  SMELL,  AND  TOUCH.  155 


contact,  a pressure.  Finally,  there  is  no  doubt 
tliat  this  sense,  by  an  exclusive  privilege,  has 
been  exercised  in  a certain  measure  from  the 
time  of  the  uterine  life.  On  this  point  De 
Frarifere  and  the  partisans  of  anterior  education 
are  right.  The  child  in  his  mothers  womb  has 
already  felt  light  touches,  vague  contact ; and  it 
is  to  the  confused  sensations,  to  the  reactions  that 
are  excited,  either  by  the  limbs  of  the  child,  one 
striking  against  the  other,  or  by  a thrust  from 
without,  that  we  must  attribute  in  part  the  mo- 
tions that  reveal  the  life  of  the  foetus. 

We  may  affirm,  then,  that  the  child  is  in  pos- 
session of  the  sense  of  touch  from  birth,  at  least 
in  an  elementary  form,  and  in  purely  passive 
operations.  Touch  acts  in  two  very  different 
ways : first,  as  a simple  susceptibility  which  is 
aroused  by  exterior  contact ; second,  and  it  is 
then,  above  all,  that  it  acquires  its  importance 
as  an  active  organ,  when  the  motions  of  the  body 
come  to  add  their  quota  of  special  sensations  to 
the  impressions  that  belong  properly  to  touch. 

Nowhere  is  it  easier  to  distinguish  the  nat- 
ural advance  of  progression  which  determines 
the  phenomena  relating  to  the  senses : first,  pure- 
ly subjective  impressions,  which  give  place  to 
muscular  contractions ; in  the  second  place,  sen- 
sations of  pleasure  or  of  pain ; finally,  veritable 
perceptions,  when  the  subject  is  no  longer  affect- 
ed simply  in  himself,  and  when  the  distinction, 
which  knowledge  of  things  presupposes,  is  made 
between  the  sentient  subject  and  the  object  per- 
ceived. 


156  the  development  of  the  child. 

All  is  reduced  in  the  beginning  to  nervous  ex- 
citations^ having,  as  their  result,  not  an  intellec- 
tual notion,  nor  perhaps  immediately,  an  agree- 
able or  disagreeable  sensation,  but  simply  reflex 
actions  and  motions  without  consciousness.  We 
cite,  as  examples,  the  motions  of  sucking,  which 
may  be  excited  by  merely  touching  the  end  of 
the  tongue  or  the  lips,  the  motions  produced  in 
the  eyelids  if  the  nose  is  tickled,  the  motions  of 
the  legs  if  the  sole  of  the  foot  is  touched,  etc. 
Darwin  says : On  the  seventh  day  I touched 

the  sole  of  my  son^s  foot  with  a piece  of  paper  ; 
he  quickly  drew  up  his  foot,  and  at  the  same 
time  crooked  his  toes  as  a much  older  child  does 
when  being  tickled.^^  It  would  be  sufficient  proof 
of  the  sensitiveness  to  touch  of  very  young  chil- 
dren to  have  seen  one  while  being  baptized. 

It  is  true  that  in  this  last  case,  the  day  of  bap-^ 
tism,  when  the  cold  water  moistens  the  child's 
forehead,  the  sense  of  touch  does  not  act  exclu- 
sively as  the  sense  of  contact,  of  pressure ; it  acts 
as  the  thermal  sense,  which  temperature,  heat 
and  cold,  affects  very  quickly.  When  the  child 
comes  forth  from  the  warm  prison  in  which  he 
has  been  confined  for  nine  months  into  the  free 
air,  he  feels  a sudden  coldness  which  produces 
sneezing  among  other  reflex  motions.  • The  need 
of  warmth  and  the  aversion  to  cold,  supposing 
even  that  suffering  and  enjoyment  do  not  result 
at  first,  cause  different  reactions  in  the  child  ac- 
cording as  they  are  thwarted  or  satisfied,  either  a 
feeble  stretching  of  the  whole  body,  which  hap- 
pens when  the  child  is  in  a warm  bath  or  in  a 


HEARING,  TASTE,  SMELL,  AND  TOUCH.  157 

well-warmed  bed,  or  crispations  and  contortions 
in  the  case  of  the  contact  of  cold  water. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  with  certainty  whether 
] pleasure  or  pain  accompanies  these  first  impres- 
' §ions  of  the  organism  or  not.  The  observations 
on  this  point  seem  to  be  contradictory.  Preyer 
tells  of  having  put  a finger  or  a piece  of  ivory 
in  the  mouth  of  a child  whose  head  was  hardly 
born;  he  began  to  suck,  opened  his  eyes  wide, 
and  showed  by  his  expression  that  the  sensations 
were  very  agreeable.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is 
possible  that  the  compression  undergone  by  the 
child  during  the  passage  through  the  neck  of  the 
uterus  may  have  been  painful.  Preyer  goes  on 
to  say  that  he  heard  a child  cry  twice  when  its 
head  only  was  born,  and  that  the  expression  of 
the  face  during  this  period  of  half  birth  was  that 
of  great  discomfort.* 

According  to  this,  the  child  only  half  born 
would  have  felt  pleasure  or  pain.  Nothing  is 
less  certain,  and  the  cries  interpreted  by  Preyer 
as  expressive  signs  of  suffering  might  well  be 
only  automatic  motions.  The  child  allows  him- 
self to  be  handled  by  the  nurse  with  a dull  tran- 
quillity that  would  lead  us  to  believe  him  to  be  in 
a state  of  complete  insensibility,  a sort  of  natural 
anaesthesia.  In  any  case.  Nature  observes  here, 
as  elsewhere,  the  law  of  moderation,  or  of  the 
least  intensity  of  the  first  sensations.  The  child 
just  born  is-  less  sensitive  to  painful  contacts 
.than  is  th.e_adult.  With  his  soft,  tender  flesh. 


* 


Preyer,  p.  97. 


158  the  development  op  the  child. 


and  his  fine,  delicate  skin,  it  would  seem  that  the 
least  touch  ought  to  excite  extraordinary  flutter- 
ings  of  the  sensibility.  It  is  not  so  at  all,  and 
benevolent  Nature  has  wisely  dulled  and  dead- 
ened the  effect  of  the  first  impressions  of  contact. 
We  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  be  deceived  by 
appearances,  by  the  force  and  frequency  of  the 
child^s  cries,  which  are  almost  always  dispropor- 
tionate to  the  real  extent  of  the  sensation  felt. 

However  that  may  be,  if  not  on  the  first  day, 
at  least  at  the  end  of  a few  weeks,  the  sensibility, 
properly  speaking,  in  so  far  as  it  is  the  principle 
of  pleasure  and  of  pain,  shows  itself  with  respect 
to  tactile  impressions,  when  they  are  mere  tactile 
impressions,  or  when  they  concern  also  the  sense 
of  temperature.  The  child  cries  in  his  cradle  be- 
cause he  is  uncomfortable.  He  cries  when  being 
washed  if  the  water  is  too  cold,  if  the  towel  or 
the  hand  is  too  harsh.  He  cries,  too,  if  his  swad- 
dling band  is  too  tight,  or  if  a wrinkle  in  the 
cloth  wounds  his  delicate  skin.  He  refuses  cer- 
tain foods,  not  because  their  taste  displeases  him, 
but  because  they  are  not  warm  enough  for  him. 
Any  one  who  has  assisted  at  one  of  these  terrible 
washing  scenes,  so  to  speak,  the  stamping  and 
violent  resistance  which  this  daily  event  in  the 
child's  life  often  causes,  has  surely  no  doubt  as 
to  the  cutaneous  sensibility  existing  in  the  child. 

All  observers  agree  in  recognising  the  exist- 
ence of  disagreeable  tactile  impressions  in  chil- 
dren a few  weeks  old,  which,  Perez  says,  result 
in  making  them  cry,  screw  up  their  faces,  move 
their  arms,  fidget,  strike  their  faces  with  their 


nEARING,  TASTE,  SMELL,  AND  TOUCH.  159 

hands.  On  the  other  hand,  Perez  believes  he  can 
state  that  lie  has  not  found  a trace  of  tactile 
pleasure  in  children  less  than  two  months  old.* 
The  reason  for  this,  we  believe,  is  that  pain  be- 
trays itself  more  easily  than  pleasure.  We  have 
no  right  to  conclude  from  the  fact  that  agreeable 
sensations,  caused  by  the  gentle  pressure  of  the 
mother's  breast,  by  the  touch  of  a caressing  hand 
or  of  a soft  fabric,  do  not  manifest  themselves  in 
the  child,  that  therefore  these  sensations  are  not 
produced;  it  is  only  that  the  outward  expres- 
sion of  them  is  lacking.  It  can  not  be  disputed 
that  pain  finds  means  of  expressing  itself  sooner 
than  does  pleasure,  and  it  is  easy  to  understand 
the  reason  for  this  priority.  The  expression  of 
pain  is  really  an  expression  of  a need  and  of  a 
necessity,  because  pain,  abnormal,  though  fre- 
quent, results  from  disordered  functions,  com- 
promises life  or  health,  and  consequently  de- 
mands help.  Pleasure,  on  the  contrary,  corre- 
sponding to  a healthy  state  of  the  organs,  to  a 
regular  development  of  the  faculties,  does  not 
aim  with  the  same  energy  at  outward  manifes- 
tation. No  inconvenience  results  from  its  re- 
maining concealed ; and  the  expression  of  pleas- 
ure is,  if  I may  say  so,  an  expression  of  luxury 
which  the  child  can  dispense  with  for  some  time. 

It  is  active  touch,  above  all,  that  will  cause 
kefen  and  often  repeated  pleasure.  But  the  pas- 
sive impressions  of  the  epidermis  are  enough  in 
themselves  to  produce  agreeable  sensations.  The 


* Perez,  p.  38. 


160  the  development  of  the  child. 

attraction  of  a little  child  for  his  mother  or  his 
nurse  is  not  only  the  effect  of  his  need  for  nour- 
ishment ; it  results  also,  in  small  part  at  least, 
from  the  pleasure  derived  from  a warm,  gentle 
contact.  Preyer  mentions  a child  seven  days  old 
whose  sleep  was  never  troubled  by  a loud  noise, 
but  whom  the  touch  of  his  mother^'s  face  awak- 
ened immediately. 

In  the  development  of  active  touch  the  child 
will  not  only  feel  sensations  of  comfort,  his  pleas- 
ure will  rise  to  delight ; and  we  come  now  to  one 
of  the  richest  sources  of  agreeable  sensations  in 
childhood.  When  the  child  puts  every  object 
within  reach  into  his  mouth,  when  he  sucks  any 
substance  whatever  and  presses  it  between  his 
lips,  we  must  not  see  in  it  merely  a reminiscence 
of  the  act  of  nursing,  an  illusion  of  duped  glut- 
tony, nor  should  we  believe,  with  Preyer,  that  if 
he  persists  in  sucking  the  finger  held  out  to  him, 
it  is  because  he  hopes  in  his  ingenuousness  that 
the  finger  will  decide  to  provide  him  with  milk ; 
it  is  simply  that  he  enjoys  touching,  feeling  with 
his  lips  everything  that  can  give  him  occasion  to 
exercise  at  once  his  nerves  and  his  muscles.  And 
what  joy  it  will  be  to  him  when  he  can  use  his 
hands  and  his  fingers  in  turning  over  and  over 
in  a hundred  different  ways  the  same  plaything 
or  object,  whatever  it  may  be,  not  only  because 
his  intellectual  curiosity  will  be  satisfied,  but  be- 
cause this  exercise  of  the  sense  of  touch  is  in  itself 
agreeable  to  him ! 

The  sense  of  touch  under  this  new  form  is  but 
an  annex  of  what  modern  psychology  rightly  dis- 


HEARING,  TASTE,  SMELL,  AND  TOUCH.  161 


tingiiislies  by  the  name  of  ‘"muscular  sense.” 
The  muscles,  so  to  speak,  move  the  organs  of 
touch.  They  permit  the  hand  to  move  about  the 
body  it  is  touching  ; they  give  to  the  fingers  that 
flexibility,  that  suppleness  which  they  need  in 
order  to  pass  over  the  different  sides  of  a book, 
the  angles  or  edges  of  a square  or  a round  object. 
In  a word,  the  sense  of  touch  becomes  compli- 
cated by  means  of  the  muscles  ; it  becomes  a col- 
lection of  special  and  immediate  sensations  and 
of  motions  giving  place  to  other  resultant  sensa- 
tions, and  also  to  veritable  perceptions.  It  is 
then,  above  all,  that  touch  becomes  really  active, 
and  that,  sensible  to  pressure,  to  weight,  to  the 
resistance  of  material  objects,  it  prepares  the 
way  for  the  acquisition  of  the  notion  of  exte- 
riority. 

This  acquisition  is  slow,  however,  and  involves 
a series  of  gropings.  We  must  not  forget  that 
the  notion  of  the  objective,  of  the  non-ego,  pre- 
supposes that  of  the  subjective,  of  the  ego ; and 
some  time  is  necessary  for  the  child  to  succeed  in 
this  act  of  consciousness  apparently  so  simple, 
by  which  he  places  himself  in  opposition  to  all 
exterior  objects.  Without  doubt  the  new-born 
child  can  not  immediately  distinguish  his  own 
body  from  other  bodies.  In  the  confusion  of  his 
first  sensations  his  feet,  which  he  likes  so  well 
to  touch  and  feel,  his  hand,  which  he  puts  in 
his  mouth  in  spite  of  the  different  impressions 
which  would  result  from  the  double  sensation 
experienced  in  this  case,  are  not  clearly  distin- 
guished by  him  from  all  the  other  objects  that 


162  the  development  of  the  CniLD. 


he  has  occasion  to  grasp.  Romanes  says,  The 
child  a year  old  does  not  know  his  own  organ- 
ism in  so  far  as  it  is  part  of  himself,  or,  more  cor- 
rectly, in  so  far  as  it  is  a part  having  special  rela- 
tions with  his  sensations.'’^  Preyer  has  remarked 
that  his  son,  when  more  than  a year  old,  bit  his 
own  arm  as  thongh  it  were  a strange  body ; we 
may  say  that  he  still  had  less  consciousness  of 
this  member  as  belonging  to  his  own  person 
than  had  Buffon^s  parrot,  which  began  by  saying 
to  himself,  Give  me  your  paw,^^  and  which  after- 
ward yielded  to  his  own  demand  by  putting  his 
foot  into  his  mouth  exactly  as  he  would  have 
given  it  to  any  one  else  who  had  asked  it  of  him 
in  the  same  way.* 

Preyer  has  made  a great  many  observations 
on  this  point : " Before  he  can  be  in  a condition 
to  recognise  the  parts  of  his  own  body  which  he 
could  touch  and  see  as  belonging  to  himself,  the 
child  must  pass  through  a great  many  experi- 
ences. . . . Vierordt  thinks  that  the  distinction 
of  general  feeling  from  the  sensations  that  refer 
to  the  outside  world  exists  from  the  third  month. 
My  observations  do  not  permit  me  to  adopt  this 
opinion.  ...  In  the  ninth  month  the  child  still 
manipulates  his  feet  with  great  ardour  and  puts 
his  toes  in  his  mouth  as  though  they  were  a new 
plaything.  Even  in  the  nineteenth  month  the 
idea  of  what  does  and  what  does  not  form  a part 
of  the  body  is  not  clear.  The  child  had  lost  one 
of  his  shoes.  I said  to  him,  ^ Give  me  the  shoe.^ 


* Romanes,  Mental  Evolution  in  Man. 


nEARING,  TASTE,  SxMELL,  AND  TOUCH.  Ifi3 


Ho  bent  over,  seized  the  shoe  and  gave  it  to  me. 
The  child  was  standing  in  the  room,  and  I said 
to  him,  ^Give  me  your  fooV  meaning  that  he 
should  hold  it  out  for  me  to  put  his  shoe  on 
again ; he  grasped  his  foot  with  both  hands  and 
tried  for  some  time  to  seize  it  and  hold  it  out  to 
me,  as  he  had  done  in  the  case  of  the  shoe.'’^  * 

The  senses  are  not;  in  the  beginning,  properly 
speaking,  the  organs  of  the  perception  of  the  ex- 
terior world.  The  exterior  world  does  not  exist 
yet  for  the  child.  His  first  sensations  and  per- 
ceptions are  neither  subjective  nor  objective ; 
they  are  simply  impressions,  or  representations 
which  fioat  in  the  air,  so  to  speak,  and  which  the 
child  does  not  localize.  Pain,  perhaps,  will  teach 
him  to  distinguish  between  subject  and  object 
before  the  comparison  of  tactile  and  visual  per- 
ceptions can  accomplish  it.  The  localization  of 
pain,  however,  is  not  produced  immediately. 
Houzeau  says : Newborn  animals  are  capable 

of  localizing  their  pains.  It  is  not  so  with  the 
child.  Egger  adds  that  when  Emile  was  four- 
teen months  old  he  scratched  his  finger ; he  cried, 
but  did  not  show  his  finger  nor  put  the  other 
hand  upon  it.  He  fell  on  his  nose  a few  days  be- 
fore, and  the  blood  gushed  forth  without  his 
knowing,  apparently  at  least,  where  the  seat  of 
the  trouble  was.^^  f 

In  passing  his  hand  over  his  body,  in  giving 
himself  up  to  all  the  little  experiments  that  he 
tries  on  his  head  and  on  his  limbs,  the  child  gains 


* The  Development  of  the  Intellect,  p.  19p.  f Egger,  p.  26. 
12 


164  the  development  op  the  child. 


little  by  little  the  idea  of  the  form  and  extent  of 
his  own  body,  but  yet  without  knowing,  perhaps, 
that  the  body  is  his.  It  is  useless  to  talk  of  a sort 
of  vital  sense  which  would  give  us  conscious- 
ness of  the  diffusion  of  our  material  being,  which 
would  suggest  to  us  in  a certain  measure  the  idea 
of  a region  where  our  heart  beats,  of  another 
where  our  brain  thinks  and  reflects.'’^*  "We  do 
not  know  where  our  heart  is  until  anatomy 
teaches  us  ; and  the  little  child  would  be  greatly 
puzzled,  no  doubt,  if  asked  to  tell  where  the  seat 
of  his  thought  lies.  But  what  he  can  learn  of 
himself,  aided  by  sight  and  by  touch,  is  that  it  is 
his  body,  his  flesh  that  suffers,  is  troubled  by  pain 
in  illness,  that  is  burned  or  shivers  with  the  cold ; 
or,  inversely,  that  takes  delight  in  the  touch  of  a 
gentle,  caressing  hand.  It  is  then  that  the  gen- 
eral feeling  of  the  self  begins,  an  indivisible  and 
indistinct  self,  to  be  sure,  for  which  there  is  as 
yet  no  question  of  considering  the  body  as  exte- 
rior to  the  soul.  And,  this  general  feeling  once 
formed,  thanks  to  the  localizations  of  the  sensi- 
bility oftener  than  to  visual  or  tactile  perception 
of  the  form  and  of  the  resistance  of  the  different 
material  parts  of  his  being,  the  child  is  hence- 
forth in  a condition  to  recognise,  by  looking  at 
objects,  by  touching  them,  and  by  feeling  of 
them,  what  is  distinct  from  himself  and  outside 
of,  exterior  to  his  own  being. 

* Maillet,  Elements  de  Psychologie  de  rilomme  et  de  PEn- 
fant,  p.  199. 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE  FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION. 

I.  Pleasure  balances  pain. — The  disagreeable  impressions  of 
the  senses. — The  organic  functions. — Sensations  of  discom- 
fort caused  by  hunger,  by  hinderance  to  motion,  by  the  need 
of  sleep. — The  teething  crisis. — Weaning,  and  its  sadness. — 
Correlative  pleasures. — The  simplest  sensations,  sources  of 
pleasure.  II.  The  most  complex  phenomena  of  the  sensibili- 
ty.— Little  passions. — Gluttony. — Egoistic  emotions. — Pear. 
— Is  it  innate  or  acquired  ? — The  fear  of  the  new,  the  un- 
known.— The  fear  of  darkness. — The  part  played  by  surprise 
in  the  child’s  fears. — Analogies  in  the  observations  made  on 
animals. — Different  forms  of  fear. — Fear,  an  emotion  pro- 
ceeding from  the  intelligence  and  the  imagination. — General 
apprehension  of  a possible  evil.  HI.  Transition  from  selfish 
to  affectionate  emotions. — Instinctive  tendency  to  love. — 
Relative  spontaneity  of  sympathy. — The  child’s  affection 
called  forth  by  the  parent’s  affection  for  him. — Character- 
istics of  the  child’s  egoism. — The  child’s  sympathy  for  ani- 
mals.— Contagion  of  feelings.  IV.  The  expression  of  emo- 
tions. — The  child’s  power  of  expression.  — Smiles  and 
laughter. — The  purely  automatic  character  of  the  first 
smiles. — Date  of  the  appearance  of  the  smile. — Different 
causes  of  the  expressive  smile. — Infiuence  of  general  disposi- 
tions of  mind  and  body. — Tears. — Date  of  the  first  tears. — 
Their  different  significations. — Other  expressive  signs  of  the 
child. 

I. 

The  child^s  life,  like  all  Imman  life,  is  a mix- 
ture of  pleasure  and  of  pain,  and  if  the  balance 
165 


166  the  development  op  the  child. 


seems  to  lean  to  the  side  of  pain  at  first,  the  equi- 
librium will  soon  re-establish  itself ; toward  the 
second  year,  when  the  work  of  teething  is  over, 
it  will  incline  to  the  side  of  pleasure. 

Let  us  lay  aside  the  question  of  deciding 
whether  the  child  begins  life  by  an  agreeable  or 
disagreeable  impression.  Bouillier,  in  his  book 
entitled  Du  Plaisir  et  de  la  Douleur,  affirms,  prin- 
cipally for  metaphysical  reasons,  that  pleasure 
should  precede,  if  only  for  an  imperceptible  in- 
stant, the  appearance  of  pain.*  We  do  not  be- 
lieve that  this  order  of  pre-eminence  and  of  suc- 
cession is  the  necessary  law  of  sensibility,  pain 
being,  whatever  may  be  said  about  it,  as  positive 
as  pleasure.  However  it  may  be,  the  question  is 
determined  in  one  way  or  another,  in  the  intra- 
uterine life,  and  the  child  has  not  waited  till 
birth  to  suffer  and  enjoy,  to  feel  vague  comfort 
or  infinitesimal  pains. 

Let  us  consider  first  the  pains.  We  shall  not 
return  to  those  resulting  from  the  exercise  of  the 
senses. t Let  us  notice  only  that  in  the  begin- 

* Every  pain  having  as  its  cause  a stopping,  an  arresting  of 
our  activity,  an  obstacle  of  some  sort  to  the  different  principles 
of  action  of  our  being,  we  must  conclude,  contrary  to  Leibnitz 
and  to  Kant,  that  the  first  state  of  our  nature  is  not  one  of  pain, 
but  of  pleasure  (Du  Plaisir  et  de  la  Douleur,  p.  101).  Leibnitz, 
on  the  contrary,  believed  that  imperceptible  pains  or  discom- 
forts were  the  necessary  condition  of  pleasure  : “ Without  these 
semi-pains,”  he  said,  “ there  would  be  no  pleasure,  and  no  means 
of  perceiving  that  something  aids  us  and  relieves  us  by  remov- 
ing the  obstacles  that  prevent  us  from  being  comfortable.” 
(CRuvres  philosophiques,  edition  Erdmann,  p.  248.) 

f See  chapters  iii  and  iv. 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  167 


ning  all  sense  impressions,  excepting  the  taste  of 
milk  and  of  warmth,  are  disagreeable  to  the 
child.  What  will  soon  be  a source  of  pleasure, 
sight,  and  hearing,  is  at  the  beginning  only  a 
source  of  suffering.  The  nerves,  in  their  deli- 
cacy, can  not  endure  as  yet  either  light  or  noise. 
And  what  is  no  less  remarkable  is  that  in  a second 
period,  when  the  sensations  have  acquired  some 
consistency,  all  the  visual  and  auditory  impres- 
sions, or  nearly  all,  will  please  the  child,  because 
they  will  all  call  into  exercise  organs  henceforth 
strengthened  and  fortified.  Time  will  be  neces- 
sary for  the  establishment  of  a natural  selection 
in  forms,  colours,  and  sounds,  the  two  categories 
of  the  agreeable  and  the  disagreeable,  in  order 
that  the  child,  at  first  bewitched  by  everything 
bright,  everything  that  makes  a noise,  may  dis- 
tinguish between  a hideous  gaily  coloured  Punch 
and  an  artistic  doll  of  well-combined  shades,  be- 
tween the  noise  of  a rattle  and  the  melody  of  the 
piano. 

The  impressions  of  the  five  senses,  moreover, 
when  not  pleasant,  are  disagreeable  rather  than 
really  painful.  Localized  as  they  are  in  one  f)art 
of  the  body,  they  have  not  a re-echoing  in  the 
organism  deep  enough  to  result  in  pain.  We 
ought  to  except  the  sensations  of  touch,  at  any 
rate  the  thermal  sensations.  The  child  is  very 
sensitive  to  cold.*  He  has  been  spoiled  by  the 
warm  temperature  of  his  mother’s  womb,  and  has 

* The  temperature  sense  perhaps  does  not  exist  immediately, 
since  the  child  is  in  a uniform  temperature  during  the  intra- 
uterine life.  But  the  variations  to  which  he  is  exposed  as  soon 


168  the  development  of  the  child. 

difficulty  in  becoming  acclimated  to  the  free  air ; 
if  he  makes  a scene  while  being  washed,  it  is  less 
the  water  than  the  coldness  of  the  water  that  he 
fears.* *  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  exposure  to 
intense  cold  would  cause  him  real  suffering,  for 
he  might  die  in  consequence. 

A second  series  of  pains  and  of  sufferings  con- 
sists of  those  resulting  from  organic,  nutritive, 
and  respiratory  functions,  and  from  the  needs 
corresponding  to  these  functions.  Of  all  the  little 
miseries  of  childhood,  there  is  none  that  tries 
the  sensibility  of  the  suckling  more  than  an  in- 
sufficient, poorly  regulated,  or  in  any  way  vitiated 
alimentation.  I saw  one  of  my  sons  shed  his  first 
tears  when  he  was  four  months  and  a half  old ; 
the  cause  was  a very  prosaic  one  : his  nurse  had 
eaten  too  many  French  beans ! The  case  is  cited 
of  a child  three  months  old  whose  mother  nursed 
him  immediately  after  having  had  a violent  fit  of 
anger ; the  child  became  as  pale  as  death,  after 
he  had  nursed,  and  the  result  was  a fit  of  convul- 
sions in  the  right  side  of  the  body  and  paralysis 
of  the  left  side.  Hunger  is  the  first  need  felt  by 
the  child  ; if  it  is  not  regularly  satisfied  the  dis- 
comfort that  results  causes  cries  and  tears  in  the 
suckling ; and  if  this  suffering  is  repeated  too 
often,  it  will,  perhaps,  cause  a nervous  and  irri- 
table temperament  for  life.  Compare  the  dis- 

as  he  is  born  develop  very  quickly  the  sensation  of  heat  and 
cold. 

* The  use  of  cold  water,  so  extolled  in  our  day,  does  not 
agree  with  very  young  children  (Dr.  d’ Ammon,  Livre  d’Or  de 
la  jeune  Femme,  p.  155). 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  169 


positions  of  children  that  are  well  nourished  and 
of  those  poorly  fed  : the  former  are  quiet,  gentle, 
and  contented,  the  latter  uneasy  and  restless.  It 
is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  some  of  the  defects 
of  the  matured  character  of  man  have  sprung 
from  the  breast  of  an  irregular  or  sickly  nurse. 
A good  lactation  is  not  only  a condition  of 
health,  it  is  also  a principle  of  a good  disposi- 
tion. Notice,  moreover,  that  hunger  and  thirst 
appear  more  frequently  in  their  periodic  returns, 
and  demand  satisfaction  oftener  during  the  first 
months.  As  Preyer  has  pointed  out,  the  smaller 
the  stomach,  the  oftener  it  becomes  empty ; the 
more  it  can  hold,  the  longer  the  interval  between 
the  moments  when  nourishment  is  needed,  and 
the  rarer  is  hunger.*  At  first  the  needs  of  Na- 
ture seem  to  demand  that  the  child  shall  be  fed 
every  two  hours ; at  three  months,  the  time  be- 
tween repasts  may  be  three  or  four  hours ; it  will 
continue  to  increase,  and  little  by  little  the  child 
will  free  himself  from  the  servitude  that  kept 
him  so  constantly  at  his  mother’s  breast  during 
the  first  weeks. 

The  sensations  caused  by  insufficient  or  im- 
pure air,  the  oppression,  the  suffocation  resulting 
from  difficulties  in  the  circulation  of  the  blood, 
do  not  merit  particular  attention  in  the  case  of 
the  child.  But  the  sensations,  particularly  keen 
in  the  first  period,  resulting  from  the  muscular 
sense  and  from  the  need  of  motion,  must  be  con- 
sidered. When  the  child  cries  in  his  cradle,  it  is 


* The  Senses  and  the  Will,  p.  154. 


170  the  development  op  the  child. 


not  always  hunger  that  besets  him;  it  is  his 
clothes  that  annoy  him ; his  swaddling  band^  per- 
haps, binds  him  too  tightly.  The  sensibility  of 
the  epidermis,  doubtless,  plays  a part  in  these 
impressions  of  discomfort.*  What  would  be 
only  a slight  touch  to  an  adult  may  be  a painful 
contact  to  the  child.  When  we  think  we  are 
caressing  him  gently  with  our  hand,  we  are  un- 
suspectingly wounding  and  bruising  his  delicate 
skin.  But  it  is  from  hinderances  to  the  liberty  of 
his  movements,  above  all,  that  the  child  suffers. 
Bound  like  a mummy  in  his  swaddling  clothes, 
he  can  not  stretch  his  limbs  nor  exercise  his 
muscles ; and  to  the  torture  of  a painful  com- 
pression is  added  the  discomfort  of  impeded 
action. 

It  is  true  that  if  being  deprived  of  motion  is  a 
cause  of  chagrin  to  the  child,  action,  in  its  turn, 
however  limited  in  extent,  opens  up  a new  source 
of  discomfort.  I refer  to  the  sensation  of  fatigue, 
which  accompanies  almost  immediately  the  nerv- 
ous excitations  of  the  senses  or  the  exercise  of  the 
muscles.  To  escape  from  this,  the  child  keeps 
falling  asleep.  With  the  limited  strength  at  his 
disposal,  the  bounds  of  possible  effort  are  quickly 
reached  and  passed.  After  crying  or  nursing, 
the  child  is  tired  and  goes  to  sleep.  But  when 
he  is  too  much  excited  to  sleep,  he  shows  very 
plainly  that  he  suffers.  Nothing  is  more  un- 
happy than  a child  that  needs  sleep  and  can  not 

* To  be  sure,  this  sensibility  does  not  show  itself  immedi- 
ately, and  it  is  certain  that  in  the  first  days  the  sensibility  to 
touch  is  hardly  developed. 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  171 

sleep.  De  Varigny,  Preyer’s  French  translator, 
says,  in  a note  in  his  translation,  that  he  has  often 
been  struck  by  the  folly  of  children  when  they 
want  to  go  to  sleep.  ^"Often,^^  he  says,  ^^they 
grunt  and  cry  for  a quarter  of  an  hour ; it  seems 
as  though  it  would  be  very  much  more  simple  to 
go  to  sleep  without  so  many  ceremonies."^  That 
would  be  more  simple,  assuredly ; but  the  child 
has  no  more  power  than  the  adult  to  command 
sleep,  and  we  all  know  how  painful  this  state 
of  insomnia  is  when,  the  more  we  seek  rest,  the 
more  it  seems  to  flee  from  us. 

The  child"s-  weakness  betrays  itself  continu- 
ally in  the  fatigue,  of  which  he  gives  proofs  every 
instant,  either  by  a state  of  somnolence  or  by 
cries  followed  suddenly  by  sleep.  And  there  is, 
doubtless,  a disagreeable  impression  correspond- 
ing to  this  sensation  of  fatigue  and  exhaustion. 
The  child"s  power  of  action  is  still  so  limited  that 
even  pleasure  soon  tires  him.  Axel,  at  the  age 
of  two  months,  after  having  listened  for  a few 
minutes  to  the  sound  of  a piano,  slept  six  hours 
without  awakening,  which  had  never  happened 
before.*  Mobility,  changeableness,  with  which 
the  child  is  so  often  reproached,  results  often  from 
his  weakness ; each  one  of  his  functions  having 
only  a very  limited  provision  of  strength  at  its 
disposal,  and  this  being  soon  exhausted,  he  is 
obliged  to  pass  quickly  from  one  occupation  to 
another  to  exercise  his  different  faculties,  one 
after  the  other. 


The  Senses  and  the  Will,  p.  160. 


172  the  development  of  the  CniLD. 

In  finishing  this  sketch  of  the  pains  that  are 
the  lot  of  the  child,  wholly  physical  pains,  more- 
over, in  which  the  intelligence,  the  moral  sensi- 
bility have  no  part,  there  remains  but  to  describe 
the  crises  of  teething  and  of  weaning.  But  these 
are  medical  rather  than  psychological  questions. 
We  shall  borrow  a few  facts,  however,  from  an 
observer  of  childhood,  to  show  how  deeply  the 
work  of  teething  troubles  the  sensibility.  The 
child  becomes  restless.  . . . Sometimes  he  utters 
sharp,  sudden  cries  and  then  becomes  quiet  im- 
mediately. . . . His  sleep  is  often  interrupted 

by  starts  of  fright One  sees  that  his  gums 

hurt  him,  for  he  puts  everything  that  comes  his 
way  into  his  mouth,  and  bites  eagerly  at  the  first 
object  he  can  grasp.  In  a second  period,  on  the 
contrary,  he  avoids  taking  objects  into  his  mouth, 
and  cries  if  he  happens  to  bite  anything  inad- 
vertently. His  colour  quickly  comes  and  goes. 
He  is  disturbed ; if  the  nurse  is  holding  him,  he 
shows  a desire  to  be  laid  on  the  bed  ; he  is  hardly 
settled  there  before  he  demands  to  return  to  his 
nurse  or  his  mother.  Nothing  pleases  him.  He 
seems  to  be  tormented  by  a confused  feeling  re- 
sembling fear,  which  does  not  leave  him  a mo- 
ment of  rest.’^  * 

We  should  not  touch  upon  weaning,  which 
interests  hygienists  above  all,  if  this  important 
event  in  the  cbild^s  life  did  not  cause  an  emotion 
of  a wholly  new  kind  to  appear,  that  of  sadness. 
If  weaning  is  premature,  if  it  is  sudden,  if  it  is 


* D’ Ammon,  Livre  d’Or  do  la  jeuno  Femme,  p.  182. 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  173 


not  seconded  by  the  natural  progress  of  the  or- 
ganism, itself  desiring  a new  alimentation,  it  not 
only  can  cause  the  child  to  decline,  but  can  throw 
him  into  a sort  of  moral  despondency,  which 
has  all  the  characteristics  of  sadness  and  of 
regret,  sadness  and  regret  for  the  first  habit 
broken. 

What  we  have  said  of  the  child^s  discomforts 
and  suffering,  excuses  us  almost  from  establishing 
the  contrary — that  is  to  say,  from  enumerating 
the  pleasures  that  come  to  counterbalance  them. 
Pleasure  and  pain  are  really  correlative.  They 
emanate  from  the  same  principle,  and  there  could 
not  be  sensibility  for  bad  without,  at  the  same 
time,  a sensibility  for  good.  It  is,  then,  from 
progressive  and  measured  exercise  of  the  organs 
of  the  senses,  it  is  from  the  satisfaction  of  organic 
needs  that  the  child^s  first  pleasures  will  come. 
During  the  first  weeks  they  will  result  almost 
wholly  from  the  appeasing  of  hunger,  from  the 
comforts  of  lactation.  Balzac  has  put  these 
words  into  the  mouth  of  a young  mother.  This 
little  being  knows  absolutely  nothing  but  his 
mother^s  breast.  He  loves  it  with  all  his 
strength;  he  thinks  of  nothing  but  this  foun- 
tain of  life ; he  comes  to  it  and  goes  away  to 
sleep ; he  awakes  only  to  return  to  it.'’^  Pleas- 
ure for  the  child  will  result,  furthermore,  from 
the  comfort  that  the  bath  in  which  he  is  plunged 
brings  to  his  whole  body,  and  also  from  the  agree- 
able sensations  which  a soft  moderate  light 
causes.  The  pleasures  of  hearing  will  be  joined 
to  these  later,  and  also  those  of  touch.  We  must 


174  the  development  op  the  child. 

not  forget  that  in  the  first  exercise  of  the  child^s 
muscles  and  nerves  there  are  sources  of  pleasure 
that  the  adult  does  not  suspect,  because  they  are 
in  his  case,  so  to  speak,  exhausted,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  repetition  and  of  habit.  Think  of  all 
that  these  little  agreeable  sensations  must  repre- 
sent— whether  impressions  felt  in  the  fir'fet  airing, 
the  brightness  of  day,  the  blue  sky  which  a blind 
person,  a few  days  after  the  operation  that  gave 
him  his  sight,  called  the  most  beautiful  thing  in 
the  world,  or  the  sensation  of  the  pure  fresh  air, 
striking  the  child^s  head  for  the  first  time.  And, 
likewise,  when  the  .child  has  become  familiar  with 
external  objects,  when  he  has  overcome  the  first 
feeling  of  surprise  and  of  fear  which  the  appear- 
ance of  everything  new  causes,  is  it  not  certain 
that  even  the  simplest  perceptions,  to  which  later 
he  will  be  indifferent,  interest  him,  and  that  in 
this  world  of  real  things,  when  his  every  glance 
is  a discovery,  he  feels,  if  not  clear  and  distinct 
pleasure,  at  least  a vague  contentment.  People 
do  not  understand  why  Preyer  claims  that  for 
children  of  the  first  age  pleasure  results  rather 
from  the  absence  of  disagreeable  conditions  than 
from  the  presence  of  positively  agreeable  con- 
ditions. Prom  the  first  day  the  suckling  experi- 
ences a positive  pleasure  every  time  he  nurses. 
And  after  some  time,  when  the  muscular  activity 
can  exercise  itself,  when  the  child  can  stretch  and 
move  his  limbs,  when  he  can  utter  sounds,  when 
he  can  feel  objects,  all  these  movements  will 
charm  and  delight  him — pleasures,  already  keen, 
while  awaiting  those  that  the  joy  of  the  first  steps 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  175 

holds  in  reserve  for  him,  the  day  when  he  can 
walk.* 

We  may  conclude,  then,  that,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  first  few  weeks,  there  is,  in  the  first 
period  of  life,  as  at  every  age,  a balance,  an  equal 
mixture  of  good  and  bad.  Only,  as  we  have  al- 
ready said,  the  expression  is  more  prompt,  more 
decided,  in  the  case  of  discomfort  than  in  that  of 
comfort.  When  their  sensations  are  agreeable,^^ 
said  Rousseau,  even  in  his  day,  children  enjoy 
them  in  silence  ; f but  this  assertion  is  too  abso- 
lute, for  the  child  that  feels  pleasure  knows  how 
to  say  so  in  his  own  language ; he  prattles,  gestic- 
ulates, and  smiles.  It  has  been  falsely  claimed 
that  the  explanations  of  the  first  motions  and  of 
the  first  symptoms  of  vitality  should  be  sought 
in  some  uneasiness,  that  the  first  vocal  utterances, 
for  instance,  depend  only  on  suffering.^  No,  the 
child  has  motions  of  pleasure  also,  and  at  a little 
more  advanced  age,  flutterings  of  joy,  little  cries, 
too,  as  a prattling  of  contentment  and  of  satis- 
faction. If  the  painful  states  of  his  sensibility 
have  a more  marked  tendency  to  manifest  them- 
selves, it  is  because  they  demand  relief  and  help; 
and  they  give  thus  to  the  very  little  child  the  ap- 
pearance of  being  more  unhappy  than  he  really  is. 

II. 

The  pleasures  and  pains  that  we  have  just 
been  enumerating  are  connected  either  with  the 


* The  Senses  and  the  Will,  p.  143.  f ^lmile,  Book  I. 
t Souriau,  Esthetique  du  mouvement. 


176  the  development  of  the  child. 

organs  of  sense  or  with  their  organic  functions, 
and  are  localized  in  different  parts  of  the  body. 
They  correspond,  moreover,  it  should  not  be 
necessary  to  say,  to  as  many  desires  and  aver- 
sions, as  many  tastes  and  dislikes — the  pleasure 
and  the  pain  being  but  the  conscious  phenomena 
which  reveal  the  inclinations,  the  innate  needs. 
They  constitute  what  might  be  called  the  ele- 
ments of  sensibility,^^  just  as  the  particular,  sepa- 
rate, successive  perceptions  are  the  elements  of 
intelligence.  Is  it  possible,  then,  to  point  out 
in  the  child  sensible  phenomena  of  a more  com- 
plex order,  resulting,  not  immediately  and  di- 
rectly, from  the  muscular  or  nervous  organism, 
but  from  a grouping,  an  association  of  different 
elements — that  is  to  say,  from  sensations  already 
felt,  from  images  and  remembrances ; and  even 
to  note  veritable  feelings,  which,  although  de- 
pendent upon  material  pleasures  already  felt, 
witness,  nevertheless,  their  virtuality  and  their 
own  energy  ? 

There  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  the  answer  to  this 
question  : The  affective  states  of  childhood  pre- 
sent to  us  the  complete  series  of  the  phenomena 
of  the  sensibility — sensations,  as  we  have  seen, 
and  also,  as  we  are  going  to  show,  emotions,  even 
little  passions. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  aflBrm  that  the  need  for 
nourishment  soon  ceases  to  be  simply  an  instinct- 
ive need,  and  that,  excited  by  the  remembrance 
of  satisfaction  already  experienced,  it  becomes  a 
passion,  with  its  characteristic  of  a fixed  idea,  of 
a tyrannical  and  exclusive  domination.  At  the 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  177 

end  of  a few  months,  doubtless,  the  nascent  facul- 
ties will  balance  and  counterbalance  each  other. 
But  in  the  beginning  the  child  is  merely  a little 
monomaniac  of  gluttony,  referring  everything  to 
the  one  action  of  sucking,  and  falling  asleep  as 
soon  as  he  is  satisfied.  His  first  love  is  that  of 
a gastronomist.^'  * Later,  he  will  allow  himself 
to  be  diverted  from  his  ruling  thought,  but  in 
the  first  months  nothing,  not  even  a toy  when 
shown  him,  nor  a loud  noise  sounding  in  his  ears, 
can  turn  him  aside  from  his  animal  desire  for 
food.  ^^Even  from  the  ninth  to  the  tenth  month," 
says  Preyer,  "^nourishment  and  everything  con- 
cerning it  comprises  the  greatest  interest  for  the 
child  who,  with  sparkling  eyes,  holds  out  his 
arms  toward  his  food  as  long  as  he  is  not  satis- 
fied." And  that  is  why  he  puts  everything  he 
can  grasp  into  his  mouth,  sucks  his  finger  or 
his  nurse's  finger — in  fine,  tastes  everything  he 
touches.  Nothing  is  so  curious  as  this  mania  of 
the  child.  We  have  seen  a baby  a few  months 
old  move  his  lips  and  open  his  mouth  on  hearing 
us  drumming  on  the  glass  of  a window  near  him; 
one  might  say  that  he  was  trying  to  lay  hold  of 
the  noise.  And  something  of  this  habit  will  re- 
main in  the  kiss,  which  is  perhaps  only  a recol- 
lection of  the  motion  of  the  lips  moving  forward 
to  grasp  the  mother's  nipple. 

Gluttony  is  the  first  passion  to  appear.  Doubt- 

* A correspondent  of  Perez,  speaking  of  a child  two  months 
old,  wrote : “ He  is  a perfect  little  beast,  voracious  to  the  last 
extreme.  ...  I never  should  have  believed  that  a child  could 
be  such  an  absolute  animal  without  any  instinct  but  gluttony.’* 


178  the  development  of  the  child. 


less  it  will  not  show  itself  in  all  its  force  except 
in  the  child  two  or  three  years  old,  who  has  been 
spoiled  by  dainties  ; but  the  child  at  the  breast  is 
not  exempt.  It  is  certain  that  the  nursing  baby 
often  demands  the  breast  when  he  is  not  hungry. 
And  the  proof  that  the  characteristics  of  a pas- 
sionate need  already  exist,  abridged,  to  be  sure, 
is  that  the  emotions  that  usually  come  in  the 
train  of  passion,  anger,  jealousy,  find  here  first 
occasion  to  exercise  themselves.*  The  child  is 
angry  with  his  nurse  if,  for  any  reason,  her  breast 
does  not  furnish  his  usual  ration  of  milk.  And 
Tiedemann  says  that  his  son  showed  great  dis- 
content when  one  day,  in  fun,  another  child  was 
placed  at  his  mother^s  breast ; he  struggled  and 
tried  to  remove  the  intruder. 

It  is  natural  that  the  personal  emotions  should 
appear  first — those  that  are  caused  by  egoistic 
aversions  to  suffering  or  by  the  desire  for  pleas- 
ure. The  most  characteristic  of  all  the  child^s 
emotions  is  fear. 

The  question  is  to  find  out  whether  fear  is  in- 
stinctive and  innate,  if  it  precedes  the  experience 
of  danger.  Assuredly,  the  greater  part  of  the 
child^s  fears  correspond  to  suffering  already  felt. 
He  has  experienced  pain  very  early  in  life ; he 
fears  its  approach  and  its  return.  And  it  is  to 
be  noted  that  in  certain  cases,  when  exposed  to 
a real  danger,  he  is  not  aroused,  because  ignorant 
and  unconscious  of  it.  The  child^s  fearlessness 


♦ We  speak  elsewhere  of  the  child’s  anger  and  jealousy.  (See 
Chapter  XIII.) 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  179 


is  oftciiest  but  the  lack  of  foresight.  A child 
that  has  never  been  struck,  for  instance,  does  not 
understand  the  signification  of  threats,  and  is  not 
frightened  by  them.  You  advance  toward  him, 
with  hand  raised  to  strike  him,  and  he  will  an- 
swer you  with  a smile.  He  knows  only  your 
caresses ; he  does  not  guess  the  import  of  your 
angry  gesture ; he  is  like  a little  dog  that  receives 
the  switch  with  which  you  are  going  to  strike 
him,  for  the  first  time,  with  joyful  leaps  and 
gambols. 

But  if  the  child  has  smiles  for  real  dangers 
sometimes,  he  has  tears  also  for  imaginary  perils. 
In  other  words,  the  remembrance  of  a pain  al- 
ready felt  is  not  always  necessary  to  the  child^s 
feeling  of  fear.*  And  the  proof  of  this  is  that  he 
will  show  a keen  fear  of  things  that  are  abso- 
lutely inoffensive.  Whether  by  the  influence  of 
heredity,  or  from  the  feeling  of  weakness,  al- 
though he  has  had  no  previous  experience,  the 
little  child  shows  natural  spontaneous  apprehen- 
sions, and  these  under  two  forms — the  fear  of 
what  is  new  and  unknown,  and  the  fear  of  dark- 
ness.! 

We  ought,  in  the  case  of  childhood,  to  reverse 
the  old  saying  to  read,  Everything  new  is  ugly.^^ 


* “ It  is  altogether  wrong  to  maintain  that  a child  has  no 
fear  unless  it  has  been  taught  him.”  (The  Senses  and  the  Will, 
p.  167.) 

t “ Fear,”  says  Dr.  Sikorski,  “ is  an  innate  feeling ; it  appears 
very  early  before  the  child  has  had  reason  to  feel  afraid.  Little 
children  feel  a panical  fright  at  the  sight  of  a cat  or  a dog  ap- 
proaching them  in  the  most  unconcerned  way.” 

13 


180  the  development  op  the  child. 

Everything  new  and  unfamiliar  makes  the  child 
start  and  cry.  At  the  sight  of  an  unfamiliar  face 
he  clings,  crying,  to  his  nurse.  And  it  is  really 
only  the  novelty  of  the  impression  that  frightens 
him ; for  in  a few  days  he  will  become  familiar 
enough  with  the  stranger,  to  whom  he  to-day  re- 
fuses to  extend  his  hand,  to  throw  himself  upon 
his  neck.  So  the  dog  and  the  cat,  which  will 
soon  be  the  favoured  objects  of  the  child^s  ten- 
derness, cause  at  first  insurmountable  terrors.  A 
simple  change  in  the  costume  of  his  mother  or 
father  makes  him  cry.  And  that  is  why  a little 
girl  four  months  old,  spoken  of  by  Preyer,  began 
to  cry  when  her  mother  approached  her  with  a 
large  hat  on,  and  smiled  as  soon  as  the  hat  was 
removed.  These  are  cases  of  misoneism,  of  that 
neophobia  which  modern  science  studies,  * which 
is  found  in  the  adult,  but  which  is,  above  all,  the 
characteristic  of  the  first  period  of  life.  Every- 
thing unexpected,  unforeseen,  is  unbearable  to 
the  child  and  causes  either  fear  or,  later,  anger. 
One  of  my  sons  when  four  and  a half  years  old 
would  get  into  a veritable  rage  every  time  I 
spoke  to  him  in  the  patois  of  my  country ; the 
unusual  language  irritated  him  to  an  extraordi- 
nary degree. 

Astonishment  in  the  case  of  the  child  is  syn- 
onymous with  fear  as  it  will  be  later  with  ad- 
miration. Surprise  and  fright  are  one  and  the 
same  thing  to  him.  Darwin  says  that  at  the  age 
of  four  months  his  son  regarded  all  the  loud  and 


* Revuo  scicntifiquo  for  November  1,  1884. 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  181 

strango  noises  which  he  was  in  the  habit  of  hear- 
ing as  good  jokes  ; but  one  day  his  father  began 
to  snore  loudly,  a noise  that  the  child  had  never 
heard  until  then  ; he  became  serious  immediately 
and  burst  into  tears.  About  the  same  time  Dar- 
win walked  up  to  him  backward  and  stopped 
suddenly.  The  child  seemed  greatly  surprised 
and  was  about  to  cry  when  his  father  turned 
around ; his  face  relaxed  immediately  into  a 
smile. 

Another  very  characteristic  form  of  childish 
fear  is  the  fear  of  darkness.  Whence  comes  this 
terror  of  night,  which,  moreover,  is  not  found  in 
children  alone  ? Rousseau  says,  Night  natural- 
ly frightens  men  and  sometimes  animals.^^* * * §  It 
comes  at  first,  as  Rousseau  has  also  pointed  out, 
from  ignorance  of  the  things  that  surround  us 
and  of  what  is  going  on  about  us.f  The  child, 
not  being  able  to  exercise  the  sense  of  real  sight, 
peoples  the  darkness  with  phantoms,  with  fantas- 
tic visions.  All  the  frightful  things  of  which  his 
little  imagination,  too  often  excited  by  his  nurse’s 
tales,  can  conceive,  spring  up  in  the  darkness.  J 
A child  who  was  asked  why  he  did  not  like  to  be 
in  a dark  place  answered,  ^‘1  don’t  like  the 


* Locke  is  of  a contrary  opinion  : “ If  children  were  left  to 

their  own  inspirations,  they  would  not  be  more  frightened  in 

darkness  than  in  daylight.”  (Some  Thoughts  on  Education, 

§ 139.) 

t Rousseau,  fimile.  Book  II. 

t Dr.  Sikorski  says  that  his  children  have  never  been  afraid 
of  the  dark,  because  they  have  never  heard  tales  to  make  them 
afraid. 


182  the  development  of  the  child. 

chimney-sweeps ! And  this  instance  proves 
that  the  child  does  not  have  to  have  his  head 
crammed  with  foolish  stories  to  be  frightened  by 
darkness.  It  is  not  only  supernatriral  beings  that 
his  imagination  calls  np ; it  is  real  beings,  thieves, 
chimney-sweeps ! Where  he  does  not  see  any- 
thing he  imagines  everything.  Add  to  that  the 
natural  repugnance  for  black  which  is  generally 
found  by  observers  of  childhood.  Preyer  tells  of 
a child  seventeen  months  old  who  showed  a re- 
pugnance even  for  his  mother  when  he  saw  her 
dressed  in  mourning.*  Tiedemann's  son,  in  the 
fifth  month,  turned  away  from  people  in  black 
with  an  evident  feeling  of  repugnance.  Black, 
the  colour  of  darkness,  denotes  in  itself  some- 
thing disagreeable.^^  There  remains  for  us  to 
add,  finally,  that  solitude  is  even  more  terrible  to 
the  child  than  darkness.  Even  when  the  child  is 
not  alone  he  believes,  if  it  is  dark,  that  he  is 
alone.  His  eyes  can  no  longer  rest  on  the  per- 
sons or  on  the  things  that  are  the  familiar  sup- 
ports of  his  weakness.  He  feels  himself  to  bo 
abandoned,  deserted.  Such  is  the  meaning  of  the 
reflection  of  the  child  that  said  to  one  of  his  com- 
panions, Do  not  let  us  go  there ; there  is  no  one 
there  ; some  one  might  hurt  us  ! 

Is  it  necessary  to  call  in  heredity  to  explain 
the  instinctive  apprehensions  of  the  first  years, 
as  do  Preyer  and  Darwin?  And  to  admit  that 

* Mme.  Necker  de  Saussure  claims,  however,  that  the  fear  of 
black  is  a simple  effect  of  habit.  “ In  Africa,”  she  says,  “ tho 
little  negroes  are  afraid  of  white  people.”  (Education  progres- 
sive, Book  II,  chap,  iv.) 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  183 


tlio  fears  of  the  child,  when  completely  independ- 
ent of  experience,  are  the  hereditary  effects  of  real 
dangers  and  of  barbarous  superstitions  dating 
from  the  epoch  of  savage  life?  This  would  be 
exaggerating  the  case  and  seeking  uselessly  in 
a prehistoric  past  for  an  explanation  that  one 
has,  so  to  speak,  right  under  one^s  nose.  In  the 
two  classes  of  fears  that  we  have  examined — those 
caused  by  the  surprise  of  a new  impression,  and 
those  caused  by  the  absence  of  light — the  question 
is  really  one  of  visionary  terrors,  the  emptiness 
of  which  is  shown  by  experience.  The  experience 
of  our  ancestors  has,  then,  nothing  to  do  with  it. 
Darwin,  it  is  true,  seems  to  lay  stress  upon  other 
facts,  and  particularly  upon  the  following  exam- 
ple : When  his  son  was  only  two  years  and  three 
months  old  he  took  him  to  the  zoological  gar- 
den ; the  child  took  great  pleasure  in  looking  at 
the  animals  that  resembled  those  he  knew — deer 
and  antelopes,  all  the  birds,  and  even  the  os- 
triches; but  he  showed  great  fear  of  the  large 
animals  that  he  saw  in  the  cages.  He  often  said 
afterward  that  he  would  like  to  go  to  the  zo- 
ological garden  again  but  not  to  see  the  beasts 
in  houses.’^  And  Darwin  concludes  that  this  fear 
would  be  inexplicable  if  we  did  not  consider  it  as 
the  remembrance  of  the  bloody  struggles  which 
our  ancestors  had  to  carry  on  against  the  wild 
beasts  in  the  primitive  life.  The  phenomenon, 
however,  seems  to  us  to  be  much  more  simple. 
Darwin  says  himself  that  the  child  was  never 
frightened  at  the  sight  of  animals  whose  forms 
were  familiar  to  him  and  which  were  not  shut 


184  the  development  of  the  child. 


up.  If  the  animals  imprisoned  in  their  cages 
caused  another  impression,  it  was  a simple  effect 
of  surprise.  By  their  forms,  by  their  dimensions, 
perhaps  by  their  motions,  if  they  were  leaping  be- 
hind the  bars,  above  all,  by  the  fact  that  they  were 
inclosed  in  their  houses,^^  as  the  child  expressed 
it,  the  lion  and  the  tiger  astonished,  and  conse- 
quently frightened,  his  imagination. 

It  is  not  in  an  unconscious  recollection  of  the 
life  of  the  ancestors,  it  is  in  the  very  nature  of 
the  child  that  we  must  look  for  the  origin  of  his 
fears.  We  must  not  forget  that  it  is  real  dangers 
that  frighten  him  least ; and  if  he  has  never  been 
harshly  treated,  he  even  seems  to  pass  through 
an  initial  period  characterized  by  the  absence  of 
fear.*  But  at  the  end  of  a few  months  he  has  felt 
suffering,  he  has  vaguely  discovered  his  weakness. 
And  in  his  limited  experience  of  evil,  by  a nat- 
ural generalization,  he  suspects  danger  every- 
where, like  a sick  person  whose  aching  body 
dreads  in  advance  every  motion  and  every  con- 
tact. He  feels  that  there  is  a danger  everywhere, 
behind  the  things  that  he  can  not  understand,  be- 
cause they  do  not  fit  in  with  his  experience.  The 
observations  collected  by  Romanes  f in  his  inter- 
esting studies  on  the  intelligence  of  animals 
throw  much  light  on  this  question  ; they  prove 
that  dogs,  for  instance,  do  not  fear  this  or  that 

* This  is  Preyer’s  opinion.  In  the  Senses  and  the  Will,  p. 
165,  he  says : “ The  avoidance  of  occasions  of  pain  prolongs  the 
period  that  is  marked  by  unconsciousness  of  fear,  whereas  the 
multiplication  of  such  occasions  shortens  the  period.’’ 

f Romanes,  Mental  Evolution  in  Animals. 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  185 


except  as  they  are  ignorant  of  the  cause.  A dog 
that  was  afraid  of  thunder  was  very  much  terri- 
fied one  day  when  he  heard  a rumbling  like  thun- 
der produced  by  throwing  apples  on  the  floor  of 
the  garret ; he  seemed  to  understand  the  cause  of 
the  noise  as  soon  as  he  was  taken  to  the  garret, 
and  became  as  quiet  and  happy  as  ever.  Another 
dog  had  a habit  of  playing  with  dry  bones.  One 
day  Romanes  attached  a fine  thread,  which  could 
hardly  be  seen,  to  one  of  the  bones,  and  while  the 
dog  was  playing  with  it  he  drew  it  slowly  toward 
him ; the  dog  recoiled  in  terror  from  the  bone, 
which  seemed  to  be  moving  of  its  own  accord. 
So  skittish  horses  show  fright  as  long  as  the 
cause  of  the  noise  that  frightens  them  remains 
unknown  and  invisible  to  them.  It  is  the  same 
with  the  child.  When  in  the  presence  of  all 
these  things  around  him,  of  which  he  has  no 
idea,  these  sounding  objects,  these  forms,  these 
movements,  whose  causes  he  does  not  divine,  he 
is  naturally  a prey  to  vague  fears.  He  is  just 
what  we  should  be  if  chance  should  cast  us  sud- 
denly into  an  unexplored  country  before  strange 
objects  and  strange  beings — suspicious,  always 
on  the  qui  vive^  disposed  to  see  imaginary  ene- 
mies behind  every  bush,  fearing  a new  danger 
at  every  turn  in  the  road. 

The  chapter  on  fear  would  be  a long  one  if  we 
tried  to  go  into  minute  details  and  examine  all 
the  forms  that  this  emotion  assumes,  from  the 
terror,  full  of  anguish,  which  the  little  child  feels 
for  a few  moments  in  the  presence  of  a conflagra- 
tion, for  instance,  to  timidity,  that  diffuse  fear. 


186  the  development  op  the  child. 


whicli  paralyzes  all  the  movements  of  the  child 
three  or  four  years  old,  and  which  is,  as  it  were, 
the  residuum  of  the  fears  of  the  first  period. 
There  would  be  many  kinds  to  distinguish ; for 
instance,  the  fear  of  falling,  which  is  found  not 
only  in  the  child  learning  to  walk,  but  which  ap- 
pears even  in  the  nursing  baby  when  he  hugs 
himself  close  to  his  nurse's  breast  to  keep  from 
sliding  to  the  floor,  a sort  of  childish  agorapho- 
bia, a characteristic  fear  of  space.*  According 
to  Preyer,  the  child  has  also  an  instinctive  fear 
of  the  immensity  of  the  ocean.  He  says  : When 

in  his  twenty-first  month  my  son  showed  all  the 
symptoms  of  fear  when  his  nurse  took  him  to 
the  beach.  He  began  to  fret,  even  when  the 
water  was  quiet,  the  wind  calm,  and  the  tide 
low."  We  must  see  there,  assuredly,  only  the 
effect  of  a sensation  of  surprise  before  the  sight 
of  a great  sheet  of  water.  In  the  same  way  the 
fear  of  thunder  in  the  child  is  only  the  result  of 
the  unexpected  impression  of  a loud  noise  whose 
cause  is  unknown.  And  the  proof  of  this  is  that 
one  sees  children  two  years  old  who,  when  they 
have  become  familiar  with  the  phenomenon, 
laugh  at  the  claps  of  thunder  and  amuse  them- 


* Compare  what  Tiedemann  says  on  this  point : “ The  child 
was  in  his  fifth  month.  One  could  see  that  he  tried  to  use  his 
hands  to  keep  himself  in  place.  If  one  put  him  down  suddenly, 
he  tried  to  steady  himself  from  falling  by  using  his  hands.  It 
was  very  disagreeable  to  him  to  be  lifted  very  high.  Ho  could 
have  had  no  idea  of  a fall.  So  the  fear  of  it  was  nothing  but  a 
purely  mechanical  impression,  like  those  that  one  feels  when 
near  a precipice,  and  a little  analogous  to  vertigo.” 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  187 


selves  by  imitating  with  their  hands  the  zigzag 
flashes  of  lightning. 

What  is  more  important  than  classifying  the 
different  kinds  of  fear  is  to  determine  the  fact 
that  fear  marks  a real  step  forward  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  child^s  sensibility.  Sully  says, 
rightly,  that  it  is  the  most  elementary  form  of 
emotion,  pure  and  simple — that  is  to  say,  of  feel- 
ing caused  directly  by  the  mental  activity.  There 
is  something  here  besides  a sensation  produced 
immediately  by  a present  object ; there  is  an  act 
of  intelligence  and  of  imagination,  and  a sort  of 
vague  induction.  The  child  that  has  suffered 
from  an  injury  is  henceforth  disposed  not  only 
to  fear  the  recurrence  of  the  same  injury,  but  to 
take  for  granted  the  possibility  of  evils  of  the 
same  sort.  Locke  said  : I think  we  may  observe 

that,  when  children  are  first  born,  all  objects  of 
sight  that  do  not  hurt  the  eyes  are  indifferent  to 
them ; and  they  are  no  more  afraid  of  a black- 
amoor or  a lion  than  of  a nurse  or  a cat.*  What 
is  it,  then,  that  afterward,  in  certain  mixtures  of 
shape  and  colour,  comes  to  affright  them  ? Noth- 
ing but  the  apprehension  of  harm  that  accom- 
panies those  things,^^  \ apprehension,  this  idea  of 
a possible  harm,  that  steps  into  even  the  most  in- 
stinctive fright  and  gives  to  fear,  however  ridic- 
ulous, however  foolish  it  may  be,  an  intellectual 
if  not  an  intelligent  character. 


* This  is  true,  we  believe,  only  in  the  first  days  of  life  at 
most,  when  the  child  is  still  almost  indifferent  to  outward  per- 
ceptions. 

f Locke,  Some  Thoughts  Concerning  Education. 


188  the  development  of  the  child. 


Fear,  in  the  totality  of  its  manifestations,  is, 
like  the  appetite  of  hunger,  only  one  of  the  forms 
of  the  instinct  of  conservation,  one  of  the  means 
that  Nature  employs  in  order  to  preserve  the  in- 
dividual, one  of  the  instruments  of  the  struggle 
for  existence.  It  is  exclusively  a personal,  ego- 
tistical feeling,  like  the  instinct  of  ownership  and 
self-love ; and  we  have  now  to  find  out  how  the 
sensibility,  which  has  already  passed  from  sensa- 
tions to  personal  emotions,  rises  by  a much  more 
difficult  transition  to  the  affectionate  emotions. 

III. 

It  can  not  be  denied  that  the  affectionate  feel- 
ings of  the  child  have  their  origin  in  selfishness. 
The  first  affections  arise  from  the  remembrance 
of  little  personal  pleasures  which  the  nurse  or 
the  mother  have  given  the  child.*  The  little 
child  likes  only  what  gives  him  pleasure  or 
amuses  him,  and  that  is  why  an  inanimate  ob- 
ject— a toy,  a doll,  a favourite  animal,  a dog,  or 
a cat — has  perhaps  the  same  rank  in  his  affec- 
tions that  his  father  or  mother  enjoy.  Doubtless 
the  love  for  others,  even  in  its  childish  form, 

* Compare  the  case  of  animals.  A little  dog  that  I observed 
showed  a great  affection  for  the  servant  whose  duty  it  was  to 
feed  him.  But  the  dog  was  taken  sick,  and  could  not  eat ; he 
was  not  hungry.  From  this  moment  he  paid  no  attention  what- 
ever to  the  servant,  and  preferred  to  seek  the  company  of  the 
other  people  in  the  house,  who  were  contented  to  pet  him.  It 
is  the  same  with  the  child ; affection  is  first  inspired  by  the 
grateful  remembrance  of  the  material  attentions  he  has  re- 
ceived. 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  189 

is  far  from  being  only  a grouping  of  agreeable 
impressions,  concentrated  by  the  association  of 
ideas  about  the  same  person;  just  as  judgment 
and  reasoning  should  not  be  confounded  with  a 
collection  of  sensations.  But  these  agreeable  im- 
pressions are  the  occasions,  the  circumstances, 
that  incite  the  need  of  loving,  and  guide  it  iji 
one  direction  or  the  other.  The  analysis,  to  ex- 
plain the  tender  sympathy  which  the  child  shows 
for  its  mother,  may  well  enumerate  the  apparent 
and,  so  to  speak,  exterior  elements  of  the  filial 
feeling — the  recognition  of  services  rendered,  the 
remembrance  of  caresses  received,  the  whole  se- 
ries of  impressions  that  have  pleased  the  utili- 
tarian instinct,  or  bewitched  the  senses  of  the 
child.  But  there  is  something  more  which  the 
analysis  does  not  reach  ; there  is  a natural  some- 
thing, the  instinctive  tendency  to  love,  which 
springs  from  the  depths  of  the  soul.  In  other 
words,  we  can  explain  the  reasons  that  attach 
the  child^s  heart  to  such  and  such  a person,  just 
as,  when  studying  the  growth  of  a climbing  plant, 
we  might  tell  why  (from  circumstances  of  prox- 
imity) it  has  fastened  its  tendrils  on  one  bush 
rather  than  on  another ; we  can  easily  explain 
why  the  child  loves  his  mother  or  his  nurse,  but 
we  can  not  tell  why  he  loves  at  all. 

It  has  often  been  said  that  the  child  learns  to 
love  by  feeling  that  he  is  being  loved,  by  seeing 
the  love  of  others  for  each  other.  Affection  then 
would  be,  above  all,  an  act  of  return,  of  imitation. 
We  shall  not  contradict  this;  we  can  not  insist 
too  strongly  upon  what  is  social,  of  the  family. 


190  the  development  of  the  child. 


and,  consequently,  what  is  acquired  in  the  devel- 
opment of  individual  sensibility.  As  Guyau  puts 
it,  It  is  by  dint  of  receiving  that  the  heart  ends  in 
gi ving.^^  * It  is  from  the  collaboration  of  many, 
from  contact  and  correlation  with  other  person- 
alities already  formed,  that  the  power  of  each  in- 
dividual to  love  springs.  A child  deprived  of 
love,  cast  by  the  fatality  of  his  birth  into  the 
midst  of  barrenness  and  coldness,  would  run 
great  risk  of  not  knowing  the  sympathetic  and 
affectionate  emotions.  It  is  not  absolutely  by  a 
moto  proprio,  it  is  by  a sort  of  response  from 
within  to  the  appeal  without  that  the  sensibility, 
like  the  intelligence,  frees  itself  from  the  shackles 
of  the  unconscious. 

But  the  relative  spontaneity  of  sympathy  in 
the  child  is  none  the  less  an  established  fact,  and 
it  shows  itself  at  first  by  the  need  that  the  child 
feels  for  the  sympathy  of  others.  The  child  de- 
mands from  his  parents  not  only  material  care, 
external  attentions,  to  make  him  happy ; he  de- 
mands their  love  also.  Darwin  has  written  these 
touching  lines  in  his  notes  on  his  daughter  Annie, 
who  died  at  the  age  of  ten : When  her  gaiety 

became  too  boisterous  a single  look  on  my  part, 
not  of  anger  (I  thank  God  that  I almost  never 
looked  at  her  so),  but  of  a lack  of  sympathy, 
changed  her  expression  for  several  minutes.  Her 
affectionate  disposition  showed  itself  when  she 
was  a very  little  child,  in  that  she  never  re- 
mained really  quiet  in  her  bed,  except  when  she 
could  touch  her  mother.^^ 


Guyau,  Education  et  h6redite,  p.  03. 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  191 

The  need  of  being  loved  does  not  exist  with- 
out a certain  faculty  for  loving ; and  on  this 
point,  too,  we  shall  call  upon  the  testimony  of 
Darwin.  He  says  that  sympathy  was  clearly 
shown  in  his  son  at  the  age  of  six  months  and 
eleven  days ; every  time  that  his  nurse  pretended 
to  cry  he  assumed  an  air  of  sadness,  characterized 
by  the  lowering  of  the  corners  of  his  little  mouth. 
But  not  until  he  was  a little  more  than  a year 
old  did  he  begin  to  express  his  affections  by  spon- 
taneous actions — for  instance,  by  embracing  his 
nurse  over  and  over  when  she  returned  after  a 
long  absence. 

W e can  not  agree  with  the  view  of  childhood 
given  by  Naville,  a philosopher,  who,  on  most 
points,  is  better  informed.  Little  children,”  he 
says,  are  perfect  egotists.  Let  us  not  reproach 
them  for  it.  How  could  they  feel  sympathy  ? 
They  do  not  know  that  there  are  joys  and  suf- 
ferings in  the  world  other  than  their  own.  The 
people  about  them  are  at  first  only  things  to 
them.  They  have  not  yet  divined  souls  behind 
these  bodies  that  move  under  their  very  eyes. 
Even  when  a mother  bends  over  the  cradle  of 
her  little  child  with  a face  full  of  love  she  is  to 
him  only  a moving  thing.  He  will  see  her  shed 
tears  many  times  before  understanding  that  she 
suffers.  And  only  when  he  does  understand  this 
will  the  dawn  of  sympathy  and  of  the  moral  life 
break  forth  in  his  heart.”  * It  would  be  hard  to 
bring  together  more  errors  into  a few  lines,  and 


* Revue  philosophique,  1881,  vol.  ii,  p.  654. 


192  the  development  of  the  child. 


this  half  page  would  be  enough  to  show  how  the 
psychology  of  the  child  is  still  groping  and  wan- 
dering ; how,  after  a hundred  years,  Rousseau 
could  still  say,  in  his  own  country,  We  know 
nothing  of  childhood.'’^  In  the  first  place,  the 
child  is  not  a '^perfect  egotist,^"  since  real  ego- 
tism presupposes  the  calculated  preference  which 
we  give  to  our  own  interests.  The  child  is  inca- 
pable of  calculation,  and  so,  if  he  is  an  egotist  at 
all,  he  is  but  an  egotist  without  knowing  it.  His 
amiable,  innocent  egotism  is  but  the  instinctive 
search  for  pleasure.  But  what  is  rash  above  all 
things  is  to  pretend  that  people  are  only  things 
in  the  child’s  eyes,  when,  on  the  contrary,  he  con- 
siders and  treats  inanimate  things  as  though  they 
were  persons — the  doll,  for  instance,  which  he 
loves,  which  he  personifies  to  the  point  of  loving 
it  as  a sister,  and  pitying  it  for  its  imaginary 
woes.*  And,  finally,  we  can  not  agree  that  chil- 
dren are  as  slow  as  Naville  thinks  in  interpreting 
the  feelings  of  others,  in  understanding,  for  in- 
stance, the  meaning  of  tears.  There  is  a force 
of  signification  in  the  natural  expression  of  pain 
which  can  not  long  escape  the  child’s  divining 
intelligence. 

There  is  no  doubt,  moreover,  that  egotism  is 
mingled  with  disinterested  affection  in  the  af- 


* Compare  Preyer  in  The  Senses  and  the  Will,  pp.  150,  151. 
“ When  figures  of  all  sorts — e.  g.,  human  forms — were  cut  out 
of  paper  with  scissors  for  the  amusement  of  my  child,  he  would 
often  weep  if  a paper  figure  was  in  danger,  through  hasty  cut- 
ting, of  losing  an  arm  or  a foot  (twenty-seventh  month).  A 
like  account  has  been  given  me  of  a little  girl.” 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  193 


fectionate  emotions  of  the  child.  But  will  not 
this  always  be  the  case  ? Is  it  not  very  rare 
to  meet  a sentiment  of  affection  absolutely  free 
from  personal  preoccupation  ? So  the  child  loves 
his  mother  for  his  own  sake  more  than  for  hers  ; 
he  loves  her  in  the  interest  of  his  own  comfort, 
which  the  mother  assures  by  her  care  and  ca- 
resses.* Tiedemann^s  son,  when  almost  a year 
old,  became  attached,  little  by  little,  to  liis  sister 
and  to  a little  dog,  to  both  of  which  he  had  been 
perfectly  indifferent  up  to  that  time.  He  did  not 
want  any  one  to  harm  either  the  one  or  the  other, 
for  both  began  to  serve  as  a pastime  in  his  play. 
So,  later,  friendship  will  be,  in  its  beginnings,  but 
the  pleasure  of  playing  with  companions.  The 
egotistic  impression  is  always  the  starting  point, 
just  as  at  the  root  of  every  abstract  and  general 
idea  there  is  always  a sense  impression  or  a par- 
ticular image. 

Let  us  notice,  moreover,  that  the  child’s  affec- 
tions are  guided  by  this  particular  sentiment 
called  sympathy,  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word 

* Lactation,  with  its  accompanying  caresses,  is  the  most  im- 
portant agent  in  the  development  of  sentiment.  It  is  from  “ this 
physiological  source  of  the  connection  of  the  mother  with  her 
child,”  according  to  Fonssagrives’s  expression  (Le9ons  d’hygiene 
infantile,  Paris,  1882),  that  the  future  feeling  of  human  soli- 
darity and  altruism  spring.  As  Morel  has  said  (Maladies  men- 
tales,  1860,  p.  561) : “ The  first  maternal  education,  thanks  to  a 
multitude  of  careful  attentions,  of  instinctively  ingenious  ca- 
resses, thanks  to  a long  moral  incubation,  if  we  may  express  it 
so,  brings  us  to  tlie  spiritual  life,  as  we  have  been  brought  to  the 
physical  life,  and  renders  us  twice  the  sons  of  our  mothers.” 
(Dr.  Sikorski,  Revue  philosophique,  vol.  xix,  p.  252.) 


194  the  development  of  the  child. 


— that  is  to  say,  the  tendency  to  reproduce,  to  re- 
flect, so  to  speak,  the  feelings  of  others.  It  is 
doubtless  for  this  reason  that  animals  are  the 
child's  best  friends.  He  naturally  sympathizes 
with  beings  that  resemble  him  in  so  many  ways, 
in  which  he  finds  needs  analogous  to  his  own,  the 
same  desire  for  nourishment,  the  same  tendency 
to  movement,  the  same  fondness  for  caresses.  To 
resemble  one  another  is  to  love  one  another.  The 
animal,  which  suffers,  cries,  feels  hunger,  diso- 
beys, and  is  scolded,  recalls  to  the  child  at  every 
turn  the  events  of  his  own  life.  This  is  why  he 
seeks  its  company,  and  is  particularly  charmed 
by  the  stories  that  tell  him  of  animals.  Sympa- 
thy is  not  a blind  instinct ; it  is  a feeling — that  is, 
the  intellectual  representations  are  involved,  and 
are  even  the  necessary  condition ; the  representa- 
tion at  least  of  thoughts,  of  emotions,  which  we 
have  experienced  in  ourselves  more  or  less  vague- 
ly, and  traces  of  which  we  recognise  by  certain 
signs  in  other  beings.  Let  us  not  expect  the  child, 
then,  to  sympathize  with  grown  people  in  general ; 
their  actions,  their  feelings,  their  ideas,  are  too 
far  above  his  range  for  him  to  comprehend  them. 
Nothing  brings  them  near  to  him.  This  is  not 
the  case  with  parents  that  act  like  children  with 
their  children,  and  show  the  child  by  their  un- 
ceasing solicitude  that  they  feel  all  that  he  feels, 
suffer  what  he  suffers,  that  they  share  his  amuse- 
ments and  his  troubles.  The  child  that  has  di- 
vined from  his  mother's  glance  that  she  shares 
his  suffering  will  be  prepared,  by  this  close  com- 
munion of  his  soul  with  another  soul,  to  sym- 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  195 

pathize,  in  his  turn,  with  his  mother’s  emotions. 
Ho  will  be  sad  when  he  sees  her  weep,  gay  when 
she  is  gay.  The  force  of  sympathy,  the  contagion 
of  the  feelings  which  it  engenders,  though  pow- 
erful at  every  period  of  life,  is  particularly  re- 
markable in  children,  as  is  proved,  for  instance, 
toward  the  fourth  or  fifth  year,  by  those  fits  of 
foolish  laughter,  or,  on  the  contrary,  of  violent 
indignation,  which  are  communicated  from  one 
to  another  through  a whole  band  of  urchins. 

IV. 

We  shall  now  study  the  expressive  signs  of 
the  different  emotions  that  we  have  just  been 
describing — emotions  that  are  known  to  us  as 
long  as  the  child  does  not  speak,  only  by  these 
expressive  signs  themselves.  Even  at  his  time 
Charles  Bell  wrote  : Children  express  some  emo- 

tions with  an  extraordinary  force;  indeed,  as  we 
advance  in  age,  some  of  our  expressions  no  longer 
spring  from  the  pure,  unmixed  source  from  which 
they  gushed  during  childhood.”  * The  child,  as 
no  one  will  dispute,  possesses  the  faculty  of  ex- 
pression in  a very  high  degree.  Everything  in 
his  soul  fiashes  forth  in  the  movements  of  his 
supple  body,  in  his  immoderate  gesticulation,  in 
his  frank,  open  physiognomy.  No  calculation 
comes  as  yet  to  disturb  the  natural  order  which 
associates  with  every  inner  emotion  an  exterior 
sign.  It  is  the  eyes,  above  all,  that  may  be  called 


14 


Anatomy  of  Expression. 


196  the  development  of  the  child. 


the  mirror  of  the  child^s  soul.  The  man  will 
learn  to  hide  his  feelings,  to  bury  in  the  depths 
of  his  being  all  that  he  wishes  to  conceal.  Ardent 
passions  will  escape  often  behind  an  impassable 
mask,  or  will  betray  themselves  only  by  imper- 
ceptible signs.  The  child,  on  the  other  hand,  does 
not  want  to  hold  back  anything  that  he  feels,  and 
he  could  not  if  he  would,  the  organs  of  expression 
being  not  yet  mastered  by  the  will.  The  dualism 
that  is  established  in  the  grown  man,  with  au- 
tonomous will  and  moral  faculties  on  the  one  side 
and  a manageable  disciplined  body  on  the  other, 
is  hardly  even  outlined  in  the  child.  His  little 
soul  shines  forth  in  every  muscle.  It  will  re- 
strain itself,  recover  itself,  in  the  adult,  but  in  the 
first  years  of  life  it  pours  itself  forth  with  a pro- 
digious exuberance ; and  no  counter-order  of  will, 
no  inhibition  of  the  faculties  of  reflection,  arrests 
the  flight,  the  excessive  prodigality  of  the  need 
for  expression  found  in  the  nascent  soul,  which, 
so  to  speak,  is  as  yet  one  with  the  body.  There 
is  almost  always  a disproportion  between  the  ex- 
pressive faculties  and  the  impressions  felt;  but 
while  in  the  adult  the  expression  falls  short  of 
the  reality,  in  childhood  it  exceeds  it.  The  child^s 
embraces  are  in  excess  of  his  love ; he  cries  more 
than  he  suffers  ; he  laughs  more  than  he  is 
amused ; and  when  he  has  learned  to  talk,  he  will 
talk  more  than  he  thinks. 

It  is  not  from  the  first  day,  moreover,  that 
cries,  smiles,  tears,  or  gestures  acquire  signifi- 
cance. Before  becoming  expressive  motions  they 
are  simply  impulsive  motions.  We  have  estab- 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  I97 

lished  this  fact  in  the  case  of  the  cries,*  and  we 
shall  now  show  that  it  is  true  of  the  smile,  of  the 
laugh,  and  of  tears.  The  same  motion  may  be 
in  turn  a pure  reflex,  an  automatic  action,  an  in- 
voluntary sign.  Anally,  the  voluntary  expression 
of  such  or  such  a state  of  the  soul.  An  attentive 
observer  could  doubtless  note  quite  perceptible 
differences  in  the  movement,  according  as  it  is 
passing  through  one  or  another  of  these  different 
phases  of  its  evolution ; he  would  And,  for  in- 
stance, that  the  child^s  cries,  that  express  noth- 
ing, do  not  resemble  those  that,  on  the  contrary, 
express  a sensation,  an  emotion,  hunger,  anger ; 
that  the  smile  is  not  always  the  same  either,  and 
that  it  is  transfigured,  even  materially,  when  it 
corresponds  to  a feeling.  But  these  shades  are 
hard  to  appreciate,  and  parents  often  make  the 
mistake  of  being  too  disposed  to  see  signs  and 
significant  things  where  there  is  still  nothing  but 
pure  automatism. 

Poets,  and  even  philosophers,  know  how  to 
embellish  the  subject.  We  have  already  cited 
Victor  Hugo^s  verses  on  the  sweet  smile  of  the 
child.  Paul  Janet,  in  a charming  page,  greets  in 
the  first  smile  the  beginning  of  the  moral  life, 
the  hatching  of  a reasonable  soul.^^  f There  is 


* See  Chapter  II. 

f Paul  Janet,  La  Famille,  p.  149.  “We  might  say  that  the 
child’s  moral  life  begins  with  the  first  smile — that  smile  so  sweet 
to  the  parent’s  eyes,  so  indifferent  to  strangers,  but  so  worthy 
of  the  attention  and  admiration  of  the  observer  and  the  philos- 
opher, who  discover  in  it  in  a way  the  hatching  of  a reasonable 
soul.” 


198  the  development  of  the  child. 

nothing  really  inexact  in  all  this,  neither  in  the 
enthusiasm  of  the  poet,  nor  in  the  philosopher's 
interpretation.  But  in  order  to  have  the  right 
of  attributing  either  this  aesthetic  charm  or  this 
high  moral  significance  to  the  smile,  it  is  neces- 
sary to  choose  the  time,  to  wait  until  the  smile 
has  become,  by  a slow  evolution,  what  it  was  not 
in  the  beginning.  In  the  prosiness  of  facts  the 
smile  is  at  first  only  an  automatic  motion  or  a 
reflex  action.  It  does  not  escape  the  general  law 
that  unconscious  life  precedes  the  intelligent  life, 
and  that  moral  significance  is  added  little  by 
little  to  acts  that  are  at  first  purely  mechanical. 
When  the  triumphant  mother  cries  toward  the 
second  or  third  month,  He  has  smiled,^^  or  She 
has  laughed,'^  she  ought  to  be  told  that  behind 
this  first  smile  there  is  no  intention,  perhaps  no 
feeling  even,  of  pleasure.  This  first  smile  is  a 
body  without  a soul.  It  is  only  a grimace,  pro- 
duced by  chance,  or  because  the  mechanism  of 
the  face  wished  it  thus.  There  is  the  outward 
appearance  of  a smile,  the  mask  of  a smile,  so  to 
speak,  but  the  reality  is  not  there.  Darwin  calls 
attention  to  this.  Those  who  take  care  of  little 
children,'^  he  says,  “ know  well  that  it  is  hard  to 
tell  whether  certain  motions  of  the  mouth  ex- 
press anything  or  not,  to  know  whether  they  are 
smiling  or  not.^^*  The  proof  that  smiling  and 
laughing  may  be  owing  to  purely  physical  causes 

* Compare  Preyer,  The  Senses  and  the  Will,  p.  294.  “ The 
first  smiling  is  the  movement  most  often  misunderstood.  . . . 
Tt  is  no  more  the  case  with  the  child  than  with  the  adult  that  a 
mere  contortion  of  the  mouth  fulfils  the  idea  of  a smile.  There 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  199 

that  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  sensibility  is 
the  fact  that  tickling  produces  bursts  of  immod- 
erate laughter  in  the  child,  together  with  a con- 
vulsion of  his  whole  body.  How  long  the  tirst 
sign  of  love,  the  smile,  is  in  appearing ! writes 
Guyau.  People  believe  that  it  is  natural,  spon- 
taneous ; who  knows  how  many  accumulated 
efforts  of  perseverance,  of  will,  have  been  neces- 
sary in  order  that  the  child  might  bring  to  light 
this  marvelous  smile,  which  is  already  the  rough 
draft  of  disinterestedness  ? Follow  the  Childs’s 
moral  life,  reflected  upon  his  face ; you  will  see 
this  first  sketch,  little  by  little,  clothed  in  a thou- 
sand shades,  a thousand  new  colours ; but  how 
slowly  ! No  picture  of  Raphael’s  ever  cost  more 
effort ! ”  *  * 

The  expressive  smile,  which  not  only  opens 
the  mouth  but  which  betrays  either  the  child’s 
pleasures  or  his  first  affections,  which  gives  bril- 
liance to  the  eyes  and  lights  up  the  whole  face, 
does  not  appear  immediately.  It  presupposes,  as 
do  tears  also,  a gradual  development,  and  before 
the  real  smile  there  are,  as  it  were,  outlines  and 
sketches  which  are  half  smiles,  quarter  smiles. 

According  to  Darwin,  the  smile  would  be  but  a 
diminutive  laugh,  a weakened  laugh,  the  vestige, 
the  remainder  in  the  child  of  the  habit  acquired 
by  our  ancestors  during  a long  line  of  genera- 
tions, of  showing  their  joy  by  laughing.  There 

is  required  for  this  either  a feeling  of  satisfaction  or  an  idea  of 
an  agreeable  sort.  Both  must  be  strong  enough  to  occasion  an 
excitement  of  the  facial  nerves.” 

* Guyau,  Education  et  heredite,  p.  63. 


200  the  development  of  the  child. 

seems^  however,  to  be  more  than  a difference  of 
degree  between  a smile  and  a laugh,  since  they 
do  not  express  the  same  feelings.  The  smile  is 
the  sign  of  a moderate  emotion  of  pleasure  or  of 
an  affectionate  feeling  ; the  laugh  corresponds  to 
an  intense  joy,  and,  in  the  adult,  to  more  compli- 
cated causes.  The  laugh,  indeed,  does  not  pro- 
ceed from  the  same  principles  in  the  child  and  in 
the  man  any  more  than  do  tears ; and  if  psycholo- 
gists have  some  trouble  in  analyzing  the  origins 
of  the  human  laugh,  it  is  surely  much  easier  to 
explain  the  child's  laugh,  which  is  always,  or 
almost  always,  the  simple  expression  of  joyous 
emotions  of  the  soul.  Children  laugh  oftener 
and  more  easily  than  grown  people.  Their  plays 
are  often  merely  a long  burst  of  laughter.  The 
most  trivial  event,  the  slightest  motive  suffices 
to  excite  these  indefatigable  peals  of  laughter. 
It  is  to  be  remarked,  however,  that  the  categories 
of  laughable  things  are  less  numerous  at  this 
period.  The  child  hardly  knows  the  laugh  of 
derision  nor  the  laugh  produced  by  surprise,  by 
a sharp  and  sudden  contrast,  which  would  incline 
him  rather  to  cry. 

It  is  when  the  child  is  about  six  weeks  old 
that  the  laugh  appears,  according  to  Mme. 
Necker  de  Saussure  ; the  smile,  earlier.  Darwin 
observed  the  first  real  smile  in  the  case  of  two 
children  on  the  forty-fifth  day ; in  another,  a 
little  earlier.  But  these  are  only  rare,  fleeting 
appearances,  and  at  two  months  old  the  smile 
has  not  yet  become  a habit. 

The  smile  in  its  first  manifestations  is,  so  to 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  201 


speak,  concentred  in  itself  ; it  is  not  directed 
toward  any  one.  Tlie  child  smiles  with  pleasure 
after  having  been  gorged  with  milk,  in  the  state  of 
comfort  in  which  his  finished  repast  leaves  him. 
Preyer  says  : On  the  tenth  day  of  his  life  I saw 

my  child  while  he  was  asleep,  after  having  just 
nursed  his  fill,  put  his  mouth  exactly  into  the 
form  of  smiling.  The  dimples  in  his  cheeks  be- 
came distinct,  and  the  expression  of  countenance 
was,  in  spite  of  the  closed  eyes,  strikingly 
lovely.^'’  * Later,  the  child  smiles  at  his  mother, 
later  still  at  the  objects  that  amuse  him,  at  his 
playthings.  And  these  smiles  are  not  all  alike. 
The  expression  of  the  child,  smiling  at  his  mother 
toward  the  third  month,  is  easily  distinguished 
by  the  direction  of  his  glance  from  that  of  the 
child  that  smiles  without  thinking  of  it,  simply 
because  his  nourishment  satisfies  him.  If  we 
could  follow  and  note  exactly  the  progressive 
shades  of  the  smile,  we  should  find  briefly  a his- 
tory of  the  child^s  mind : first,  the  simple  mate- 
rial satisfaction  of  the  little  animal  that  has  been 
well  fed ; later,  the  feeling  of  gratitude  which 
the  nursing  baby  has  for  whoever  nurses,  cares 
for,  and  caresses  him  ; later  still,  and  in  a higher 
degree,  sympathetic  affection,  love,  disinterested 
tenderness ; finally,  when  the  intelligence  is 
awakened,  the  shrewd  penetrating  sense  that 
seizes  upon  the  amusing  connections  of  things, 
the  entertaining  witticisms  of  conversation. 

The  smile,  like  the  laugh,  does  not  involve 


* The  Senses  and  the  Will,  p.  295. 


202  the  development  of  the  child. 


merely  a special  cause  that  calls  it  forth  at  the 
moment  when  it  is  produced ; it  is  connected 
with  the  healthy  with  the  general  state  of  the 
body,  and  of  the  mind.  Marcel  was  ill  for  a 
time,  and  the  smile  disappeared  entirely ; it  did 
not  return  until  his  physical  strength  began  to 
be  built  up  again.  In  the  child,  perhaps,  much 
more  than  in  the  man,  the  smile  and  the  laugh 
depend  upon  the  general  conditions  of  the  whole 
organism.  How  can  we  explain,  except  by  a gen- 
eral state  of  comfort  and  contentment,  these  in- 
numerable laughs  of  the  child,  that  never  end 
and  do  not  seem  to  have  any  definite  cause  ? 

The  question  reduces  itself  to  an  investigation 
as  to  whether  the  smile  comes  spontaneously  to 
the  child^s  lips  or  whether  it  has  to  be  called 
forth,  whether  it  is  but  an  imitation,  or  at  the 
least  a response  to  another  smile.  Guyau  does 
not  hesitate  on  this  point,  and  says,  It  is  by  dint 
of  seeing  smiles  that  the  child  smiles.^"  This 
statement  is  too  absolute.  Doubtless  little  chil- 
dren smile  oftener  if  they  have  an  example  before 
them — ridentibus  arrident  . . . Excited  by  the 
sound  of  a caressing  voice  and  by  the  sight  of  a 
smiling  face,  the  nursing  baby  flutters,  moves  his 
hands,  seems  to  wish  to  raise  himself,  and  at  the 
same  time  his  whole  face  is  lighted  up  with  joy. 
But  toward  the  fourth  or  fifth  month,  according 
to  my  personal  observations,  the  child  begins  to 
show  signs  of  the  initiative  in  his  smile.  Marcel 
at  this  age,  when  lying  in  his  cradle,  was  very 
much  pleased  by  a curtain  with  red  flowers  on 
it ; he  talked  to  it  in  his  own  language,  he  smiled 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  203 

at  it.  The  same  child  at  six  months  did  not  wait 
for  me  to  smile  before  smiling  himself ; he  took 
the  lead,  and  smiled  first.  Imitation,  that  great 
means  of  education,  undoubtedly  exercises  its 
influence  in  the  development  of  the  expressive 
signs,  as  in  all  the  other  parts  of  the  intellectual 
evolution.  But  we  believe,  nevertheless,  that  the 
smile,  hereditary  or  innate,  is  a natural  grace  of 
the  child.  It  is  with  the  smile  as  with  all  the 
rest;  first,  reflection,  so  to  speak, /reaction,  and 
response;  afterward,  personal  initiative.  Even 
if  he  lived  with  sombre,  melancholy  parents,  in 
the  midst  of  frowning  faces,  the  child  would 
smile,  less  often  perhaps,  but  still  he  would  en- 
liven this  society  of  saddened  and  unfortunate 
people  with  his  gay  and  charming  smile. 

When  the  smile  has  once  become  a habit  the 
child  will  never  unlearn  it,  not  even  the  most 
sickly,  the  most  miserable  child ; for  there  will 
always  be,  even  in  the  midst  of  the  greatest  suf- 
fering, bright  gleams  of  comfort,  of  relative  pleas- 
ure, which  will  permit  a smile  to  dawn  upon  his 
lips  as  the  sun  breaks  across  the  clouds.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  is  always  enough  tenderness 
in  the  child^s  heart  for  a disinterested  smile  to 
be  developed,  the  expression  of  pure  sympathy, 
freed  from  all  remembrance  of  agreeable  sensa- 
tions. At  four  months  Marcel  smiled  at  me  al- 
most as  much  a^  at  his  mother,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  the  sight  of  me  did  not  recall  any 
pleasures  to  him. 

The  laugh  under  its  different  forms — the 
moderate  laugh,  bursts  of  laughter,  immoderate 


204  the  development  of  the  child. 

laughter — is  in  one  sense  the  adult  smile,  in  so 
far  as  the  smile  is  simply  a sign  of  pleasure.  It 
is  owing  to  a lack  of  strength  if  the  smile  of  the 
very  young  child  when  he  is  satisfied  and  happy 
does  not  break  forth  into  noisy  laughter.  Even 
in  the  child  of  two  months  the  smile  is  accompa- 
nied by  sounds  that  seem  to  prepare  the  way  for 
a laugh : A sort  of  little  bleating/^  Darwin  says, 

and  he  adds  that  when  the  child  he  observed 
was  one  hundred  and  thirteen  days  old  these 
sounds  changed  their  character ; they  became 
more  broken,  more  jerky,  as  in  the  sob.  This, 
Darwin  says,  was  the  beginning  of  laughter. 

It  is  the  same  with  tears  as  with  smiling  and 
laughing;  here,  too,  there  is  a gradual  develop- 
ment. Darwin  says  that  a certain  practice  is 
necessary  for  weeping  as  well  as  for  the  acquisi- 
tion of  the  ordinary  motions  of  the  body,  such  as 
those  of  walking,  for  instance.*  Before  being 
the  expression  of  pain,  tears  are  a purely  material 
phenomenon,  devoid  of  any  moral  significance. 
Darwin  says,  in  addition,  that  every  time  the 
periocular  muscles  contract  greatly  to  protect  the 
eyes,  in  compressing  the  veins  the  lachrymal  se- 
cretion becomes  more  active,  often  to  such  an 
extent  that  tears  flow  down  the  cheeks.  This 
phenomenon  appears  under  the  influence  of  the 
most  opposite  emotions,  as  well  as  in  the  absence 

* It  is  to  be  remarked,  moreover,  that  children  differ  greatly 
in  the  matter  of  tears,  rare  in  some,  frequent  in  others.  Dr. 
Sikorski  has  minutely  analyzed  the  causes  of  what  he  calls 
pleurnicherie : the  sicknesses,  bad  care,  conditions  of  birth,  etc, 
(See  Revue  philosophique,  vol.  xix,  pp.  248  et  seq.) 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  205 


of  all  emotion.  Purely  physical  impressions  that 
do  not  arouse  the  sensibility  may  produce  tears. 
Paring  an  onion  will  cause  even  an  adult  to  weep. 
But  tears  are  soon  associated  with  the  cries  that 
the  child  utters  when  he  suffers,  when  he  com- 
plains, and  they  become  the  sign  of  physical 
suffering  before  being,  at  a higher  stage  of  evo- 
lution, the  natural  language  of  affliction  and  of 
moral  grief. 

It  is  important  to  note,  moreover,  that  tears 
do  not  accompany  the  first  cries  of  the  newborn 
child.  The  date  of  the  first  tears  varies  greatly 
with  different  children.  Darwin  made  experi- 
ments on  his  children  and  the  children  of  his 
friends.  In  some  the  eyes  were  not  moistened 
by  tears  until  the  third  or  fourth  month;  in 
others  tears  appeared  toward  the  end  of  the 
third  week.  Preyer  claims  that  his  own  observa- 
tions would  point  to  a more  prompt  appearance 
of  tears,  and  he  protests  in  the  name  of  German 
children  at  least,  who  show  greater  precocity,  I 
have  seen  tears  flow  from  the  eyes  as  early  as  the 
twenty -third  day  in  my  boy.""^  * 

These  contradictions  are  not  of  great  impor- 
tance, since  they  bear  only  on  a question  of  days, 
or  of  weeks  at  most.  What  is  undoubtedly  estab- 
lished from  now  on  is  the  order  of  the  evolution 
of  the  causes  that  determine  tears  from  the  days 
when  tears  have  acquired  significance  : First, 
physical  suffering ; later,  emotions  of  another 

* The  Senses  and  the  Will,  p.  308.  “ What  Darwin  reports — 
that  usually  babes  do  not  shed  tears  before  they  are  two  or  four 
months  old — is  not  true  of  German  children  in  general.’’ 


206  the  development  of  the  child. 

order — anger,  caprice,  chagrin  ; finally,  moral 
grief.  And  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  in  the  life  of 
the  adult  the  last  stage  will  continue  almost 
alone.  In  man  at  least,  if  not  in  woman,  tears 
will  become  less  and  less  frequent,  and  will 
never  be  occasioned  by  physical  suffering ; mor- 
al pain  alone  will  bring  tears  to  their  eyes.* 

Let  us  not  neglect  to  show,  moreover,  that  a 
certain  number  of  movements  of  the  face  are 
joined  to  tears  to  express  the  painful  states  of 
the  soul,  just  as  laughing  is  not  only  a movement 
of  the  lips,  but  is  completed  by  a number  of 
other  signs.  Darwin,  following  in  the  footsteps 
of  others — of  Lebrun,  for  instance — has  described 
minutely  the  physiognomy  of  a weeping  child: 
Knitting  of  the  brows,  lowering  the  corners  of 
the  mouth,  etc.  The  weeping  child  cries  aloud, 
and  the  two  English  verbs  to  weep  and  to  cry  are 
synonymous.  The  knitting  of  the  brows,  the 
wrinkles  that  crease  his  forehead,  are  produced 
independently  and  do  not  always  accompany 
cries  and  tears.  Preyer  observed  these  motions 
from  the  second  day.  A mother  saw  her  baby 
a few  days  old  knitting  his  brows  and  said,  He 
is  thinking  of  grave  matters.""  No,  these  motions, 
like  all  the  rest,  do  not  represent  a real  moral  sit- 
uation until  after  some  time,  and  they  have  not 
at  first  any  psychic  causes. 

Let  us  add,  finally,  that  tears,  like  laughter, 

* The  laugh,  Darwin  says,  resembles  tears,  which  do  not  flow 
in  the  case  of  the  adult  except  under  the  influence  of  moral 
grief,  while  in  the  child  they  are  occasioned  by  any  suffering, 
physical  or  otherwise,  as  well  as  by  fright  and  anger. 


FIRST  EMOTIONS  AND  THEIR  EXPRESSION.  207 


even  at  the  period  when  they  have  become  ex- 
pressive signs,  are  not  necessarily  the  expression 
of  suffering.  The  proof  that  there  is  often  in 
the  laugh  only  a superabundance  of  life,  the  dis- 
charge of  the  excess  of  nervous  force,  is  in  the 
fact  that  sometimes  when  children  begin  to 
laugh,  a meaningless  circumstance — a nothing, 
really — will  cause  them  to  pass  from  laughing  to 
crying,  and  vice  versa.  Tears  sometimes  accom- 
pany contentment,  satisfaction.  The  child  some- 
times sheds  a few  tears  while  nursing.  In  the 
adult,  also,  there  are  tears  of  joy.* 

Cries  then,  together  with  smiles  and  tears,  are 
far  from  exhausting  the  natural  language  of  sen- 
sibility. In  moments  of  joy  or  of  keen  pleasure 
the  whole  body  is  in  motion ; the  legs  move,  the 
child  claps  his  hands ; later,  he  will  leap  with  joy. 
When  angry  the  child  becomes  red,  when  he  is 
frightened  very  pale.  It  is  hardly  probable  that 
the  child^s  cheeks  are  coloured  by  a blush  for  the 
same  reason  as  in  the  case  of  the  adult.  Darwin 
says  that  the  intellectual  faculties  of  children 
are  not  sufficiently  developed  to  permit  them  to 
blush,  t To  say  nothing  of  the  intellectual  facul- 
ties, it  is  certain  that  the  feelings  that  most  fre- 

* If  the  laugh  is  peculiar  to  man,  it  is  not  the  case  with  tears. 
Darwin  says,  “ It  is  known  that  the  Indian  elephant  weeps  some- 
times.” Sir  J.  E.  Tennent,  in  describing  the  elephants  that  he 
saw  captured  and  imprisoned  at  Ceylon,  expresses  himself  thus: 
“ Some  remained  motionless,  crouched  on  the  ground  without 
showing  their  suffering  except  by  the  tears  that  flowed  inces- 
santly.” 

f “ The  blush,”  Darwin  says,  “ is  the  most  human  of  all  ex- 
pressions. We  can  cause  a laugh  by  tickling  the  skin,  tears  or 


208  the  development  op  the  child. 

quently  cause  a blush — shame,  wounds  to  self- 
love — are  rare  in  the  child.  Darwin,  however, 
mentions  two  little  girls  who  blushed  at  the  age 
of  two  or  three  years,  and  a child  four  years  old 
who  blushed  when  reproved  for  any  fault. 

The  multiplicity  of  the  affective  states  in  the 
child  could  not  be  better  established  than  by  the 
study  of  his  physiognomy.  Humility  or  courage, 
the  feeling  of  weakness  or  of  strength,  surprise, 
astonishment,  admiration,  are  strongly  depicted 
on  his  face  or  are  revealed  in  his  posture.  What 
could  be  more  expressive  than  the  pout,  the  pro- 
trusion of  the  lips,  that  sign  of  bad  humour  ? A 
whole  book  might  be  written  on  this  subject,  a 
whole  gallery  of  photographs  taken  and  collected 
(like  those  that  have  already  been  attempted,  of 
crying  children),  in  which  might  be  preserved 
that  which  is  so  fleeting,  which  by  its  incessant 
changing  defies  even  the  quickest  observation, 
the  most  continued  attention,  which,  finally,  bears 
witness  even  by  this  very  fact  to  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal characteristics  of  childish  sensibility — the 
perpetual  inconstancy  of  its  light  and  capricious 
emotions. 


frowns  by  giving  a blow ; but  we  can  not  occasion  a blush  by 
any  physical  means.  The  mind  must  be  impressed.” 


CHAPTER  VI. 


MEMORY  BEFORE  AND  AFTER  THE  ACQUISITION 
OF  LANGUAGE. 


I.  Opinions  of  Rousseau  and  Madame  Campan. — How  far  back 
do  our  first  remembrances  date? — Why  do  we  remember 
nothing  of  our  first  years  ? — Development  of  the  child’s  mem- 
ory.— The  continuity,  or  at  least  the  repetition  of  percep- 
tions is  necessary  to  establish  the  remembrance  of  them. — 
Consequently,  the  remembrance  of  accidental  facts  is  effaced. 
— The  multiplicity  of  impressions,  and,  above  all,  the  ab- 
sence of  co-ordination,  causes  the  disappearance  of  the  first 
remembrances. — The  idea  of  the  self,  the  necessary  rallying 
point,  does  not  exist  as  yet. — The  inability  to  localize  re- 
membrances in  time  and  space. — The  passive  character  of 
the  child’s  memory. — The  presence  of  things  necessary  to 
arouse  memory. — The  impersonal  memory  of  the  child  and 
the  organic  memory. — In  one  sense,  memory  precedes  con- 
sciousness.— Recognition. — The  association  of  ideas  and 
language.  II.  The  further  development  of  memory. — The 
power  of  acquisition  of  the  child’s  memory. — Physiological 
reasons. — Psychological  reasons. — In  the  adult,  the  overbur- 
dened condition  of  the  memory  hinders  the  acquisition  of 
new  ideas. — Other  characteristics  of  the  child’s  memory. — 
The  child  has  not  learned  to  forget. — The  remembrances  of 
childhood  are  particularly  vivid ; in  different  forms  of  am- 
nesia they  are  the  last  to  disappear. — Faults  of  childish 
memory : it  is  literal  and  mechanical. — The  memory  of  imbe- 
209 


210  the  development  of  the  child. 


ciles. — Inequality  and  different  forms  of  memory. — Impor- 
tance of  memory. 

I. 

Memory  is  not  developed  until  the  age  of 
three  years/^  wrote  Mme.  Campan.*  J.  J.  Rous- 
seau, more  absolute  still,  declared  that  children, 
not  being  capable  of  judgment,  have  no  real 
memory,  t 

What  seems  to  be  unusual  and  false  in  these 
estimations  may  be  easily  explained  if  we  con- 
sider, not  what  the  two  authors  seem  to  say,  but 
what  they  really  mean  to  say.  If  Rousseau 
seems  to  deny  the  child  memory,  he  means  only 
the  memory  of  ideas — the  adult  memory,  which  is 
capable  of  following  and  recognising  all  the 
threads  of  a long  reasoning.  He  was  the  first  to 
affirm  that  children  remember  sounds,  forms, 
sensations,  which  amounts  to  saying  that  they 
remember  everything  that  they  can  perceive  and 
feel,  abstract  ideas  not  being  yet  within  their 
reach. 

As  to  Mme.  Campan^s  statement,  it  depends 
on  this  fact  of  general  observation,  namely,  that 
the  adult  does  not  remember  the  first  years  of 
his  life.  In  my  earliest  remembrances,  which 
go  back,  if  I mistake  not,  to  my  fifth  or  sixth 
year  — this  is  the  opening  of  the  Memoires  d^un 


* Mme.  Campan,  De  TEducation,  Book  III,  chap.  i. 
t Rousseau,  Emile,  Book  II : “ Although  memory  and  rea- 
soning are  two  essentially  different  faculties,  still  one  does  not 
really  develop  without  the  other.  Before  the  age  of  reason  the 
child  does  not  receive  ideas,  but  images.” 


MEMORY. 


211 


Enfant,  by  Mme.  Micbelet.  first  recollec- 

tions/^ says  Darwin,  date  from  the  age  of  four 
years  and  several  months/^  * 

According  to  other  testimonies,  memory  some- 
times goes  back  a little  further.  One  person  of 
thirty-five  whom  I questioned  on  this  subject 
told  me  that  she  remembered  with  remarkable 
precision  as  to  details  certain  sights  that  she  had 
witnessed  when  she  was  three  years  old : a bap- 
tismal ceremony  in  the  village,  a noisy  fair  in 
Paris.  One  of  my  sons  remembers  a visit  which 
he  made  his  grandfather ; he  remembers  having 
seen  him,  when  ill,  stretched  at  length  in  his  in- 
valid’s chair.  He  died  a few  months  later,  when 
the  child  was  only  two  years  old.  Pierre  Loti 
claims  to  have  had  remembrances  dating  from  as 
early  an  age.  He  says : I remember  as  though 

it  were  yesterday  the  evening  on  which  I sud- 
denly discovered  how  to  run  and  jump;  I was 
excited  to  the  point  of  falling  by  the  deliciously 
new  amusement,  though  I had  walked  for  some 
time.  This  must  have  been  at  the  beginning  of 
my  second  year.”  f 

But  most  memories  seem  to  have  begun  at  a 
more  advanced  age.  I have  pried  into  my  own 


* Rousseau  says  the  same : “ 1 do  not  know  anything  about 
what  I did  before  the  age  of  five  or  six.  I do  not  know  how  I 
learned  to  read.”  (Confessions,  Book  I.) 

t Pierre  Loti,  Le  Roman  d’un  enfant,  p.  4.  Perez  tells  us 
that  he  retains  the  terrifying  remembrance  of  an  ignorant  and 
coarse  nurse  who,  when  he  was  only  two  years  old,  held  him  out 
of  the  window  a moment,  and  pretended  that  she  was  going  to 
throw  him  down.  (L’Enfant  de  trois  a sept  ans,  p.  3.) 

15 


212  the  development  op  the  child. 


recollections  in  vain;  the  only  fact  that  rises 
from  the  dark  abyss  in  which  my  first  years  are 
buried  dates  from  my  sixth  year : it  is  the  proc- 
lamation of  the  republic  of  1848.  I still  hear,  as 
though  in  a dream,  the  serious  tones  of  a friend  of 
my  father's  who  came,  while  we  were  all  at  table, 
to  announce  the  news  of  the  fall  of  Louis  Phi- 
lippe. I still  see  the  restless  groups  of  people  in 
the  evening  discussing  the  situation  for  hours  on 
the  promenade  of  the  little  city  in  which  I lived. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  different  causes 
vary  for  each  individual,  the  date  at  which  his 
past  begins : First,  the  particular  dispositions,  a 
more  or  less  marked  precocity,  but,  above  all,  the 
circumstances,  the  character  of  certain  incidents 
that  the  child  has  witnessed,  which  have  sur- 
prised him  and  have  struck  him  by  their  novelty 
or  their  importance,  projecting  them,  so  to  speak, 
causing  them  to  stand  out,  on  the  customary 
course  of  life.  One  will  remember  a catastrophe, 
a great  misfortune,  even  less  than  that,  a bad  fall 
experienced  at  the  time  of  the  first  steps,  while 
the  ordinary  events  of  a regular  and  monotonous 
life  will  be  forgotten. 

But  with  these  variations,  which  are  easily  ex- 
plained, the  general  fact  stands,  nevertheless: 
there  is  a limit  beyond  which  we  do  not  remem- 
ber anything.*  A veil  of  obscuration  hides  our 
first  years  from  us.  It  would  seem  natural  that 
the  recollections  of  the  beginnings  of  our  life 

* “ It  is  customary  generally  to  assume  that  the  memory  of 
jfdults  does  not  extend  further  back  than  to  the  fourth  year  of 
life.”  (Preyer,  The  Development  of  the  Intellect,  p.  9.) 


MEMORY. 


213 


should  be  confused,  but  the  truth  is,  they  do  not 
exist  at  all.  It  is  true  that  we  always  find  some 
difficulty  in  recomposing,  so  to  speak,  in  bringing 
back  the  past  by  means  of  memory,  even  in  the 
case  of  maturity  or  of  youth.  In  even  the  most 
faithful  adult  memory  there  are  always  gaps, 
partial  forgetfulness.  But  when  it  is  a question 
of  our  very  first  years  there  is  a total  amnesia 
analogous  to  that  which  follows  intoxication  or 
to  that  which  is  caused  by  certain  diseases,  an 
amnesia,  however,  which  is  natural  and  normal. 
Nothing  of  what  we  have  seen  or  felt,  of  our  joys 
and  our  first  sorrows,  remains  in  our  conscious- 
ness. Not  one  ray  of  remembrance  lights  up 
these  years  which  are  lost  to  us — lost,  at  least,  to 
our  memory — and  during  which  nothing  recalls 
to  us  the  fact  that  we  have  lived. 

This  is  the  first  problem  we  have  to  solve  in 
the  history  of  the  evolution  of  the  memory.  We 
must  not  think  to  explain  it  by  answering  that  if 
we  do  not  remember  anything  it  is  because  noth- 
ing has  happened  and  that  wherever  conscious- 
ness is  wanting  memory  loses  its  power.  There 
is  no  doubt  but  that  consciousness  is  awakened 
very  soon,  that  the  child  feels  emotions — emotions 
of  fear,  of  astonishment,  of  joy — which,  although 
arising  from  slight  causes,  have  nevertheless  their 
force  and  their  vividness.  And,  to  take  but  one 
example,  how  does  it  happen  that  we  have  no  re- 
membrance of  an  action  that  seems  to  interest  all 
the  active  forces  of  the  child’s  being — that  of  the 
first  step,  the  first  walk  ? The  essential  condi- 
tions generally  associated  with  the  power  of  re- 


214  the  development  op  the  child. 


membering — keen  sensation,  attention — are  real- 
ized in  this  case.  The  child  learning  to  walk  is 
visibly  attentive,  and  when  he  takes  possession 
of  space  for  the  first  time  he  is  manifestly  de- 
lighted. How  comes  it,  then,  that  this  important 
event  of  the  first  period  of  our  lives  leaves  not 
the  slightest  durable  imprint  in  our  memory  ? 

The  best  way  to  explain  the  facts  is  to  begin 
by  defining  them  well.  Let  us  begin,  then,  by 
showing  that  the  memory  of  the  little  child  acts 
in  its  own  way,  and  then  consider  under  what 
conditions  it  acts.  From  the  very  first  months 
the  nursling  learns  to  recognise  his  mother's  face, 
the  faces  of  the  people  who  care  for  him  and 
caress  him.  In  this  recognition,  which  sometimes 
withstands  an  absence  of  several  weeks,  the  pow- 
er of  memory  shows  itself.  Perez  cites  an  in- 
stance of  a child  (a  year  old,  to  be  sure)  who  was 
taken  back  to  his  home  after  a month's  absence. 
As  soon  as  he  saw  a good  old  servant  coming  to- 
ward him,  even  before  she  had  spoken  his  name, 
he  smiled  and  held  out  his  arms  to  her,  fairly 
leaping  with  joy.  Preyer  tells  of  a little  girl 
seventeen  months  old  who  recognised  her  nurse 
after  an  absence  of  six  days.*  In  this  respect, 
moreover,  the  aptness  of  the  newborn  child  does 
not  exceed  that  of  animals — of  little  dogs,  for  in- 
stance— which  can  very  quickly  distinguish  the 
hand  that  caresses  them  from  the  hand  that 

* To  be  sure,  Preyer  found  that  his  son  did  not  recognise 
his  nurse  at  seven  months  after  an  absence  of  four  weeks.  The 
power  of  memory,  from  this  point  of  view,  seems  to  be  clearly 
established  at  about  one  year. 


MEMORY. 


215 


strikes  them.  On  the  other  hand,  all  the  knowl- 
edge that  the  child  collects  through  the  medium 
of  his  senses  concerning  the  things  that  he  sees 
and  hears,  the  objects  that  he  handles — all  this 
little  practical  science  so  rapidly  acquired  in- 
volves a considerable  exercise  of  memory.  And 
it  is  the  same  with  the  acquisition  of  language  ; 
every  new  word  that  the  child  learns  represents 
an  effort,  or  at  least  an  act  of  memory. 

But  the  result  of  many  observations  seems  to 
establish  the  fact  that  these  acquisitions  of  the 
child's  memory,  so  easy  and  so  prompt,  are,  on 
the  other  hand,  fragile,  unsubstantial ; that  they 
vanish ; that  they  are  obliterated  if  any  accident 
whatever  interrupts  the  course  of  the  perceptions 
which  have  produced  them,  and  whose  continua- 
tion is  necessary  to  retain  them  in  the  mind.* 
Leibnitz  tells  of  a child  who  became  blind  when 
two  or  three  years  old,  and  who  never  had  any 
remembrance  of  his  visual  perceptions.!  Laura 
Bridgman  had  had  the  use  of  her  senses  for 
several  months  before  an  attack  of  fever  de- 
stroyed her  hearing,  her  sight,  and  her  speech ; 
from  that  time  on  she  never  mentioned  any- 

* Memory,  at  first,  is  really  only  the  continuation  of  the 
same  impression.  “ The  first  phase  of  real  or  conscious  mem- 
ory,” says  Romanes,  “ may  be  considered  as  consisting  in  the 
secondary  effect  produced  on  a sensitive  nerve  by  an  excitation — 
an  effect  which,  as  long-  as  it  lasts,  is  continually  transmuted  to 
the  sensorium.  As  an  example^  -I  shall  cite  the  persistency  of 
impressions  on  the  retina,  the  pain  that  follows  a blow.”  (Men- 
tal Evolution  in  Animals.) 

f Leibnitz,  Nouveaux  essais  sur  I’entendement,  Book  I, 
chap.  iii. 


216  the  development  of  the  child. 


tiling  that  she  had  learned  before  her  illness. 
A little  girl  mentioned  by  Preyer  became  totally 
blind  at  the  age  of  seven  years^  as  the  result  of 
having  been  exposed  to  too  bright  sunlight.  At 
the  age  of  seventeen  she  recovered  her  sight ; she 
had  to  learn  anev^,  as  a little  child  would,  to  name 
colours.  She  had  forgotten,  through  want  of  exer- 
cise, all  that  during  those  seven  years  she  had 
learned  of  distances  and  the  dimensions  of  objects. 

The  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  these  facts 
and  others  which  might  be  cited  is  that  repeti- 
tion, the  frequent  and  continued  recurrence  of 
impressions,  is  necessary  to  fix  the  recollections 
of  the  earliest  years.  The  child  learns  his  mother 
tongue  so  easily  only  because  he  hears  the  same 
words  continually.  He  recognises  objects  and 
persons  only  because  he  sees  them  every  day. 
Place  him  in  the  midst  of  other  surroundings, 
send  him  from  home  when  he  is  two  or  three  years 
old,  and  everything  that  was  particular  or  local 
in  the  impressions  of  his  first  habitation  will  be 
obliterated  forever.  The  child's  memory  is  like 
a delicate  painting,  which  the  brush  must  pass 
over  several  times  in  order  to  keep  the  fleeting 
colours,  always  ready  to  disappear. 

We  see  from  this  that  an  impression  which 
has  been  but  a fleeting  apparition  in  the  child's 
consciousness,  the  emotion  of  an  instant,  an  acci- 
dental fact,  does  not  succeed  in  impressing  itself, 
in  fixing  itself  in  the  mind.  The  child's  memory 
is  like  the  moving  sands  of  the  seashore.  In 
vain  do  you  mark  them  with  your  footprints  as 
the  wave  recedes;  the  returning  wave  effaces 


INTELLECTUAL  EVOLUTION. 


217 


all.  If  repetition  is  a useful  condition  at  every 
age  in  assuring  the  continuance  of  recollections, 
it  is  an  absolutely  necessary  condition  when 
light  impressions  that  only  skim  over  the  child^s 
consciousness  are  concerned.* 

Moreover,  the  multiplicity  of  new  impressions 
of  every  sort  which  assail  the  brain  of  the  new- 
born child  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  causes  of 
the  weakness  of  his  memory.  Too  many  things 
crowd  forward  at  once  and  overpower  the  child's 
perception.  His  little  memory  bends  under  the 
mass  of  sensations.  In  this  respect  the  case  of 
the  child  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  blind  per- 
son spoken  of  by  Cheselden,  who  had  too  many 
objects  to  recognise  at  once,  and  forgot  some  of 
them.  And,  moreover,  his  inconstant  attention, 
which,  according  to  Fdnelon's  pretty  compari- 
son, resembles  a lighted  candle  when  exposed  to 
the  wind,  its  light  wavering  and  flickering  con- 
tinually, does  not  give  the  separate  sensations 
time  to  become  hardened  or  solidified,  so  to 
speak.  The  child's  perception  does  not  stop  for 
consideration ; it  moves — runs  on  incessantly ; 

* Compare  Preyer,  The  Development  of  the  Intellect,  p.  9 : 
“ Nothing  later  on  reminds  us  of  the  once  existing  inability  to 
balance  the  head,  or  of  the  former  inability  to  turn  around,  to 
sit,  to  stand,  to  walk,  etc.  But  this  is  not  true  of  what  is  ac- 
quired later.  My  child,  when  less  than  three  years  old,  remem- 
bered very  well — and  would  almost  make  merry  over  himself  at 
it — the  time  when  he  cguld  not  yet  talk,  but  articulated  incor- 
rectly, and  went'  imperfectly  through  the  first,  often  repeated 
performances  of  his  nurse  . . . The  child  of  three,  and  even  of 
four  years,  can  remember  separate  experiences  of  his  second 
year,”  provided,  Preyer  adds,  “ he  is  often  reminded  of  them.” 


218  the  development  op  the  child. 


and  in  this  rapid  course  of  fluttering  from  subject 
to  subject,  it  can  not  seize  and  lay  hold  of  objects 
that  are  hardly  touched  in  passing. 

We  have  not  yet  indicated,  however,  the  real 
essential  cause  that  renders  the  continuance  of 
the  first  remembrances  so  uncertain:  it  is  the 
absence  of  co-ordination  between  the  successive 
perceptions.  Real  memory,  the  memory  of  the 
adult,  is  a totality,  a close  woof  of  impressions 
bound  one  to  the  other,  enclosed  in  fixed  frames 
about  a central  nucleus,  the  idea  of  the  ego.  This 
is  not  the  place  to  investigate  the  question  as  to 
whether  the  idea  of  self  be  or  be  not  derived  from 
the  close  connection  of  the  states  of  consciousness 
which  are  being  unfolded  within  us.  But  what 
is  certain  is  that  during  the  very  first  years  the 
ego,  or  at  least  the  consciousness  of  the  ego,  does 
not  exist.  There  is  not  as  yet  what  Luys  calls 
^‘^a  chain,  a mysterious  federation  of  remem- 
brances.^^ * Scattered  and  floating,  as  it  is,  in  a 
succession  of  separate  sensations,  which  are  not 
associated  one  with  the  other,  but  are  strangers 
so  to  speak  to  the  ego,  and  so  have  no  personal 
character,  the  child^s  consciousness  is  not  cen- 
tred; it  does  not  control  itself.  The  inner  life 
is  not  yet  organized,  and  it  is  this  inner  life  that 
permits  adults  to  preserve  the  exact  and  faithful 
memory  of  events  in  which  they  have  partici- 
pated. By  reflection,  by  a turning  in  upon  our- 
selves, we ' think  anew  of  what  we  have  done  a 
day,  a week,  or  a month  before.  The  event  upon 

* Luys,  The  Brain,  Genesis,  and  Evolution  of  the  Memory, 

p.  112. 


INTELLECTUAL  EVOLUTION. 


219 


which,  our  memory  is  fixed  will  perhaps  not  be 
reproduced  before  us;  but  if  the  real  repetition 
is  lacking,  we  substitute  for  it  an  ideal  and  a 
mental  repetition.  In  a word,  the  mature  man 
thinks  over  his  remembrances ; he  digests  them ; 
he  assimilates  them.  Moreover,  when  the  feeling 
of  the  ego  is  once  born,  each  new  acquisition  of 
memory  takes  a definite  place  in  the  conscious- 
ness by  the  side  of  other  impressions,  before  or 
after  other  remembrances;  it  forms  part  of  a 
whole ; it  is,  so  to  speak,  inlaid,  cemented  in  the 
mental  construction  of  our  inner  consciousness,  as 
stones  would  be  cemented  in  a wall,  without  the 
power,  henceforth,  to  detach  itself.  In  the  case  of 
the  child,  on  the  contrary,  the  fieeting  impressions, 
separated  and  independent  one  of  the  other — 
grains  of  dust  with  no  cohesion— do  not  find  place 
to  fix  themselves.  The  current  of  the  inner  life  is 
not  sufficiently  established,  and  the  remembrances, 
like  waters  that  have  not  been  directed  into  canals, 
are  scattered  and  lost  on  one  side  and  on  the  other. 

The  same  reasons  that  explain,  in  the  case  of 
the  adult,  the  disappearance  of  remembrances 
relating  to  the  first  period  of  existence,  help  us 
to  understand  some  other  particulars  of  the 
child’s  memory;  for  instance,  his  inability  to 
localize  in  time  and  space  even  the  most  recent 
impressions.  The  picture  is  engraved  on  his 
memory,  but  the  setting  has  vanished.*  He  re- 

* Romanes  says : “ The  last  phase  of  the  development  of 
memory  is  reached  when  reflection  permits  the  mind  to  localize 
in  the  past  the  time  at  which  an  event,  which  memory  has  pre- 
served, took  place.” 


220  the  development  of  the  child. 

members  distinctly  the  things  he  has  seen^  but  he 
can  not  tell  where  or  when  he  saw  them.  Com- 
plete memory  involves  an  appreciation  of  dura- 
tion of  which  the  child  is  incapable,  since  this 
appreciation  involves  the  co-ordination  of  recol- 
lections or  remembrances.  Who  has  not  heard  a 
child  tell  of  an  event  that  he  witnessed  several 
months  before  as  though  it  had  happened  only 
the  day  before  ? The  child  that  breakfasted  only 
two  or  three  hours  ago  demands  his  dinner  now 
because  he  has  no  notion  of  time  passed.*  The 
child's  memory  is,  above  all,  imaginative,  repre- 
sentative ; it  has  not  found  yet,  in  the  idea  of  the 
ego,  in  the  idea  of  the  duration  of  time,  the  solid 
principles  on  which  rests  the  reflective  and  rea- 
soning memory  of  the  adult. 

Just  as,  withbut,  the  child's  perceptions  seem 
to  him  to  be  almost  on  the  same  plane,  and  he 
can  not  project  them  in  space  with  exactness ; so, 
within,  his  remembrances  and  his  impressions  co- 
exist in  him,  as  it  were,  without  his  being  able  to 
arrange  them  in  a linear  series,  and  to  relate  them 
to  different  moments  of  time.  To  the  newborn 
child  there  is  no  depth  in  space ; to  the  child  a 
few  months  old  there  is  no  perspective  in  the 
past;  there  is  no  past.  The  images  which  he  has 

* “ The  confusion  of  past  and  present  time  is  seen  in  the 
child.  A boy  two  years  and  a half  old  lost  his  ball  the  other  day 
from  the  balcony ; he  found  it  again,  and  lias  played  with  it  a 
hundred  times  since : in  spite  of  that  fact,  he  led  me  suddenly 
toward  the  balcony,  and  told  me  in  a very  sad  tone,  with  an 
expression  he  could  not  have  feigned,  that  he  had  lost  it  there.” 
(Guyau,  ^lducation  et  heredite,  p.  147.) 


INTELLECTUAL  EVOLUTION. 


221 


successively  acquired  are  mingled  in  a confused 
chaos.  The  child  must  conquer  illusions  analo- 
gous to  those  that  perplexed  the  visual  percep- 
tions of  Cheselden^s  blind  man  before  he  can 
have  the  consciousness  of  time  and  represent 
duration  to  himself.  His  images  must  group 
themselves  little  by  little,  must  be  associated  in 
a regular  order,  must  define  the  idea  of  the  ego, 
joined  to  that  of  duration,  just  as  the  repre- 
sentations of  the  exterior  world  form,  little 
by  little,  the  conception  of  space,  and  conse- 
quently the  conception  of  what  is  not  the 
self. 

Another  characteristic  of  the  child’s  memory 
is  its  passivity ; it  has  to  be  continually  propped 
up,  so  to  speak,  by  external  excitations  called  to 
action  by  the  presence  of  objects.  The  child’s 
remembrances  do  not  call  themselves  up.  His 
little  intelligence  is  limited  almost  entirely  to 
the  present;  it  does  not  think  much  of  the 
future,  not  at  all  of  the  past.  We  must  not  ex- 
pect it  to  delight  in  living  over  the  months 
already  passed,  as  the  memory  of  the  mature 
man  will  do.  The  child’s  memory  resembles 
that  of  animals — without  activity  in  itself,  sub- 
ordinate to  real  sensations.  It  is  certain  that 
the  horse  in  the  stable,  if  he  thinks  at  all,  does 
not  think  of  the  road  he  travelled  over  the  day 
before;  and  yet,  if  he  begins  the  same  journey 
on  the  next  day, 'he  will  know  with  unfailing 
certainty  which  way  to  go. 

This  influence  of  the  presence  of  things  al- 
ready seen  may  be  demonstrated  by  the  facts 


222  the  development  of  the  child. 

cited  by  Ribot,*  which  prove  that  under  the 
action  of  particular  circumstances,  revived  or 
brought  to  life  again  by  the  reappearance  of  ob- 
jects long  forgotten  and  removed  from  our  sight, 
the  memory  of  the  first  years,  though  apparently 
destroyed,  may  suddenly  arise  again.  Abercrom- 
bie reports  the  instance  of  a woman  who,  on  re- 
turning when  about  forty  years  old  to  the  room  in 
which  as  a little  child  not  yet  able  to  speak  she 
had  seen  her  dying  mother  for  the  last  time,  felt 
the  remembrance  of  the  emotions  she  had  then  ex- 
perienced rising  from  the  depths  of  her  memory. 
She  said  that  she  had  a distinct  feeling  of  hav- 
ing been  in  that  room  before.  There  was  a 
woman  in  bed  in  one  corner,  she  remembered,  who 
seemed  to  be  very  ill,  and  who  leaned  over  her 
and  wept.  Carpenter  relates  that  a man,  of 
vivid  imagination  to  be  sure,  who  when  sixteen 
months  old  had  visited  a castle  to  which  he  had 
been  carried  on  the  back  of  a donkey,  on  return- 
ing to  the  same  castle  long  years  afterward,  felt 
clearly  the  impression  that  he  had  seen  it  before. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  he  could  even  see,  under 
the  porch,  the  donkey  that  had  carried  him  be- 
fore, f Perceptions  recovered  even  after  a long 
interval  suffice,  in  cases  of  this  kind,  to  stir  the 
nervous  cells  to  their  very  depths,  to  renew  par- 
ticular movements  in  the  brain,  and  to  cause,  in 
consequence,  the  resurrection  of  correlative  re- 
membrances which  were,  so  to  speak,  buried 
there. 


* Les  maladies  de  la  memoire,  p.  143. 
f Carpenter,  Mental  Physiology,  p.  431. 


INTELLECTUAL  EVOLUTION. 


223 


In  other  cases  it  is  a morbid  cause,  a fit  of 
fever,  which  produces  the  same  effect.  Aber- 
crombie tells  of  a child  four  years  old  who  had 
to  be  trepanned  because  of  a fracture  of  the 
skull.  He  apparently  had  no  remembrance  of 
this  event,  and  it  had  never  been  spoken  of  to 
him.  At  the  age  of  fifteen  he  was  taken  with  a 
febrile  delirium,  and  described  to  his  mother 
with  perfect  exactness  all  the  details  of  the 
operation. 

There  are  many  bends  and  turnings,  many 
byways  and  hiding  places  in  the  memory.  The 
successive  events  of  life  store  up  layers  of  re- 
membrances, one  superposed  on  the  other,  and 
this  work  begins  with  childhood.  Forgetful- 
ness, a positive  oblivion,  usually,  gets  possession 
of  a large  number  of  these  impressions  which 
we  bear  within  us  unconsciously,  and  which  will 
spring  up  again  only  under  the  excitatory  action 
of  extraordinary  circumstances ; just  as  the  char- 
acters of  a palimpsest  do  not  reappear  under  the 
writing  that  hides  them,  unless  affected  by  chem- 
ical reactions. 

It  follows  from  all  this  that  memory,  although 
the  results  of  its  action  are  often  obliterated,  is 
by  no  means  a stranger  to  the  little  child.  How 
could  it  be,  when  it  is  developed  to  such  an  ex- 
tent even  in  little  animals?*  But,  as  Egger  has 

* On  the  development  of  memory  in  animals,  see  Romanes, 
on  Animal  Intelligence.  Memory  is  one  of  the  faculties  that 
we  have  most  right  to  attribute  to  animals;  but,  whatever 
credit  is  due  most  of  the  facts  reported  by  the  English  evolu- 
tionist, we  must  guard  against  attributing  to  personal  memory 


224  the  development  op  the  child. 


remarked,  memory  is  produced  at  the  earliest  age 
for  acts  that  are  frequently  repeated ; it  is  slower 
in  the  case  of  accidental  acts/^ *  * It  is  only  at  the 
age  of  fifteen  months  that  Egger  claims  to  have 
observed  it  under  this  second  form.  ^^At  that 
age  Emile  seizes  a toy  that  he  has  left  or  hidden 
under  a chair;  a quarter  of  an  hour  afterward 
I ask  him  for  it;  he  goes  straight  to  the  object 
and  brings  it  to  me.^^  We  believe  that  the  re- 
membrance of  a sensation,  even  isolated  or  acci- 
dental, may  come  much  earlier ; and  Egger  him- 
self furnishes  us  with  a proof  of  this.  ^^At  six 
months  Emile  was  slightly  burned  by  touching 
a warm  dish  with  his  hand ; when  it  is  presented 
to  him  again,  he  draws  his  hand  back  with  an 
evident  intention  to  escape  pain ; the  same  ob- 
servation in  the  case  of  an  object  harsh  to  the 
touch,  the  impression  of  which  is  disagreeable  to 
him.’^  f In  these  direct  inductions,  founded  on  a 
single  experiment,  the  force  of  particular  re- 
membrances is  clearly  shown. 

The  memory  of  the  child  is  not  a Danaidean 
cask,  emptied  as  fast  as  it  is  filled.  If  no  intel- 
lectual operation  can  be  accomplished  without 
the  memory,  it  is  equally  true  that  no  practical 
action  is  possible  without  it.  In  lactation,  in 
play,  in  walking,  memory  has  its  part  to  play. 
But  these  remembrances,  utilized  as  they  are 
immediately,  and  sufficing  to  assure  from  day  to 
day  the  regular  development  of  the  intelligence 

what  is  only  the  effect  of  hereditary  memory,  of  instinct  de- 
termined by  ancestral  experiences. 

* Egger,  o'p,  cit.,  p.  11. 


f Ibid,  p.  10. 


INTELLECTUAL  EVOLUTION. 


225 


and  of  the  activity,  do  not  constitute  the  durable 
elements  of  the  personal  memory.  They  form 
part,  so  to  speak,  of  that  impersonal  though  con- 
scious memory  which  characterizes  the  child  a 
few  months  old,  and  which  has  been  preceded  itself 
by  a sort  of  organic,  unconscious  memory.  If  in 
the  adult  memory  presupposes  consciousness,  if 
it  is  true  that  we  remember  only  what  has  been, 
at  a given  moment,  present  in  our  mind  and 
felt  or  perceived  by  it,  it  is  not  impossible  to 
hold,  in  turn,  that  consciousness  in  its  original 
evolution  proceeds  partly  from  memory,  at  least 
from  that  obscure  memory  which  is  but  a habit 
contracted  by  the  nerves  and  the  muscles.  We 
have  said  that  in  the  action  of  sucking,  for  in- 
stance, it  is  only  little  by  little  that  the  child 
becomes  conscious,  has  the  sense  of  an  act  which  is 
at  first  purely  automatic.*  This  transition  from 
the  unconscious  to  the  conscious  would  be  inex- 
plicable if  we  did  not  admit  that  every  repetition 
of  the  same  action  leaves  some  trace  behind  it, 
and  makes  deeper  and  deeper  impressions  in  the 
nervous  system,  which  impressions  are  associ- 
ated and  stored  up,  and  so  prepare  the  way  for 
consciousness. 

Memory  has  often  been  represented  as  a form 
of  habit,  and  it  is  in  this  sense  that  instinct  may 
be  defined  as  a hereditary  memory,  an  imper- 
sonal habit.  But  what  distinguishes  the  con- 
scious and  personal  memory  in  its  subsequent 
development  is  the  fact  that  the  sensation  which 


* See  chapter  ii. 


226  the  development  of  tee  CniLD. 


is  presented  to  the  consciousness  anew  does  not 
'appear  to  it  as  a stranger,  as  an  unknown ; it  is, 
in  a word,  the  fact  of  recognition.  We  are  not 
called  upon  here  to  seek  an  explanation  for  this ; 
recognition,  moreover,  seems  to  be  one  of  those 
ultimate  facts  that  resist  analysis.  But  what 
we  have  to  ascertain  is  that,  thanks  to,  his  per- 
sonal experiences,  the  child  very  soon  recognises 
sensations;  for  instance,  the  particular  taste  of 
the  milk  with  which  he  is  fed.*  After  several 
successive  acts  of  sucking,  the  nursling  has  evi- 
dently acquired  the  remembrance  of  the  taste  of 
the  milk,  so  that  if  there  is  a change  he  will 
perceive  it.  It  is  much  easier  to  bring  up  a 
child  on  the  bottle,  to  nurse  him  artificially,  so 
to  speak,  if  he  has  never  been  nursed  at  the 
breast,  f 

* Compare  Romanes’s  Mental  Evolution  in  Animals.  Romanes 
distinguishes  two  phases : that  in  which  a present  sensation  is 
felt  as  analogous  to  a sensation  already  felt,  and  that  in  which, 
on  the  contrary,  a present  sensation  is  perceived  to  differ  from 
a past  sensation.  He  adds : There  is  not,  in  these  cases,  a con- 
scious comparison  between  the  two  sensations ; there  is  not  even 
an  act  of  ideation : but  the  past  sensation  has  left  its  trace  in 
the  nervous  tissue  in  such  a way  that  when  it  is  presented  anew 
it  appears  in  the  consciousness  as  being  a sensation  that  is  not 
unknown,  but  familiar ; or  if  it  is  replaced  by  a different  sensa- 
tion, the  latter  appears  in  consciousness  as  being  an  unknown 
sensation,  unfamiliar. 

f The  same  fact  is  observed  even  in  the  lower  animals. 
Reamur  (Entomologie,  vol.  i,  p.  391)  says  that  larva?,  having 
lived  some  time  on  one  plant,  would  rather  die  than  change 
their  food  and  live  on  another  plant,  which,  however,  they 
would  have  accepted  if  they  had  been  accustomed  to  it  from 
the  beginning. 


INTELLECTUAL  EVOLUTION.  227 

In  the  first  stages  of  the  evolution  of  the  mem- 
ory there  are  only  sensations  which  are  renewed, 
and  which,  by  a mysterious  power  or  faculty, 
recognise  themselves,  so  to  speak,  or,  if  they  are 
different,  distinguish  themselves  and  perceive 
their  own  differences.  There  can  be  as  yet  no 
question  of  appealing  to  the  intervention  of  some 
mental  power  distinct  from  sensations,  which 
would  appreciate  their  difference  or  their  resem- 
blance as  an  independent  witness.  This  mental 
power  is  not  yet  formed,  nor,  in  consequence,  is 
there  yet  a real  memory  awake  in  the  interval  of 
sensations  and  in  their  absence,  tending,  through 
the  association  of  ideas,  to  unite  and  call  up 
again,  one  after  the  other,  the  remembrances 
whose  relations  it  has  appreciated.  As  Romanes 
has  very  aptly  expressed  it,  there  is  then  no 
longer  simply  the  memory  of  a past  sensation 
(which  sleeps  until  the  moment  when  it  is  awak- 
ened by  another  sensation  resembling  it,  or  dif- 
fering from  it),  but  there  is  the  memory  of  two 
things  at  least,  and  the  memory  of  a relation  pre- 
viously found  between  them.  But  in  order  to 
arrive  at  that  point,  an  essential  condition  is  re- 
quired in  addition  to  the  natural  progress  of 
intelligence,  of  what  English  psychologists  call 
ideation  ; it  is  the  possession  of  language.  If 
words,  indeed,  are  necessary  to  the  formation  of 
more  or  less  clear  general  ideas,  they  are  indis- 
pensable also  in  fixing  the  remembrance  of  the 
, particular  perceptions  themselves,  and  in  causing 
them  to  remain.  And  to  all  the  reasons  that  we 
have  given  to  explain  the  weakness,  the  uncer- 
16 


228  ™e  development  of  the  child. 


tain  state  of  the  memory  during  the  first  months, 
we  must  add,  as  one  of  the  most  important,  the 
absence  of  language. 


II. 

Thus  far  we  have  described  only  the  prepara- 
tory period  of  mnemonic  development,  a period 
of  gropings,  of  weakness,  and,  so  to  speak,  sudden 
swoonings,  during  which  the  memory  seems  to 
stumble  at  every  step,  working  only  from  day  to 
day,  incapable  as  yet  of  keeping  a firm  and  even 
gait,  and  passing  through  moments  of  torpor ; 
for  instance,  when  the  child  who  has  happened 
to  pronounce  the  eagerly  watched  for  syllable  pa 
does  not  find  it  again  for  several  months,  and 
seems  to  have  forgotten  it. 

Moreover,  let  us  not  regard  these  first  periods 
of  the  development  of  memory  as  unimportant 
to  its  future.  The  faculty  of  recognising  persons 
and  things  is  in  itself  of  some  importance.*  Lan- 
guage itself,  a condition  of  subsequent  positive 
development,  is  acquired  only  by  the  aid  of  the 
nascent  memory  of  the  child. 

It  is  true,  nevertheless,  that  the  period  of  the 
memory  proper  does  not  begin  until  the  child  can 
talk.  Then,  indeed,  the  child  does  not  acquire 
merely  a minimum  of  trifling  and  necessary 
knowledge  through  the  senses ; he  can  learn  and 


* “ Before  he  is  two  years  of  age  the  child  has  very  precise 
remembrance  of  things  familiar  from  his  point  of  view — of  whip- 
pings, sweetmeats,  falls,  a kitten,  a bowwow,  a hobby-horse,  a toy, 
caresses,  kisses,  etc.’’  (Nicolay,  Lcs  enfants  mal  eleves,  p.  308.) 


IXTELLRCTUAL  EVOLUTION. 


229 


retain  what  is  told  him,  can  interest  himself  in 
stories,  can  acquire  finally  ideas  that  are  stran- 
gers to  his  experience. 

It  is  almost  commonplace  to  extol  the  merits 
of  the  child^s  memory,  and  especially  its  marvel- 
lous facility  of  acquisition.  Observe  the  child 
attentively,  and  you  will  discover  in  him  a power 
of  absorption  and  assimilation  that  is  almost 
prodigious,  and  is  found  at  no  other  age.  The 
child's  mind  is  like  a sponge,  always  thirsty."  * 
It  is  easy  to  understand  why  this  is  so.  First, 
there  are  physiological  reasons  for  this  extreme 
faculty  of  absorption,  and  the  state  of  the  brain 
should  be  mentioned  as  the  first.  Luys  says: 
In  young  children  tlie  cerebral  cells  are  flexible 
and  pliant."  Besides,  the  cerebral  matter  is  oc- 
cupied perpetually  with  the  work  of  organic  de- 
velopment ; new  elements  are  continually  being 
added  to  the  old."  Later,  the  cerebral  matter 
will  have  less  flexibility,  less  plasticity  ; a period 
of  fatigue  and  of  saturation  will  come.  The  phys- 
ical structure  of  the  brain  will  be  determined; 
new  divisions  will  no  longer  be  opened.  We  see, 
then,  what  favourable  conditions  the  cerebral  or- 
ganism offers  in  childhood  for  the  development 
of  memory.  It  is  the  period  when,  in  its  fresh- 
ness, in  its  vitality,  the  brain  most  resembles  a 
sensitive  photographic  plate,  receiving  and  stor- 
ing up  the  slightest  shades  of  objects ; it  is  also 
the  moment  when,  sb  to  speak,  the  house  is  not 
yet  finished,  and  new  stories  are  being  placed  one 


* G.  Droz,  L’Enfant. 


230  the  development  of  the  child. 


above  the  other,  when,  in  consequence,  there  is 
room  for  ceaseless  new  acquisitions. 

But  the  psychological  reasons  are  quite  as 
clear  as  the  physiological  reasons.  What  im- 
pedes the  work  of  storing  up  remembrances  at  a 
more  advanced  age  is,  first,  that  the  personal  re- 
flection, inner  preoccupations,  and  also  the  pas- 
sions, turn  us  aside  from  the  observation  of  things 
as  they  are.  The  mature  man,  or  even  the  youth, 
centred  as  he  is  in  himself,  finding  in  his  own 
thought  sufficient  food  for  his  intellectual  life, 
has  not  his  eyes  open  on  the  world,  so  to  speak, 
in  the  same  degree  as  the  child.  On  the  other 
hand,  being  already  overburdened  and  encum- 
bered with  remembrances,  the  adult  memory  is 
less  supple,  less  active  in  its  motions.  The  paths 
of  access  are  obstructed.  The  place  is  taken,  so 
to  speak,  and  a new  remembrance,  to  be  fixed  in 
the  mind,  often  has  to  take  the  place  of  an  old 
one.  If  it  is  true  that  there  is  a limit  to  the  pos- 
sible acquisitions  of  memory,  it  is  natural  that 
the  acquisitions  should  be  easiest  at  the  age  when 
the  mind  is  furthest  from  this  limit.  In  the  adult 
a new  acquisition  often  displaces  prejudices,  pre- 
conceived beliefs.  We  give  only  a distracted  at- 
tention to  ideas  that  are  presented  to  us  for  the 
first  time ; and  even  a sort  of  instinctive  repug- 
nance keeps  us  at  a distance  from  them.  We  are 
far  from  that  state  of  naive  candour  of  the  mind 
which  accepts  all,  even  becomes  enamoured  of  all. 
Doubtless  one  has  more  power  of  attention  at  fif- 
teen than  at  ten,  more  at  ten  than  at  four  or  five ; 
so  the  progress  of  age  improves  and  fortifies  one 


INTELLECTUAL  EVOLUTION. 


231 


of  tlio  conditions  of  the  acquisition  of  remem- 
brances. But  we  must  not  forget  that  the  defects 
of  the  child^s  attention  are  compensated  for  by 
valuable  qualities;  his  attention  does  not  last 
long,  it  is  true,  but  it  is  always  ready,  always  in 
motion ; a searcher  and  f erreter,  it  is  always  on 
the  watch  for  new  impressions. 

Under  these  conditions,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  the  child,  who  sees  all,  who  hears  all, 
whose  curiosity  grasps  all  the  details  of  things, 
should  soon  acquire  a great  many  remembrances. 
George,  at  the  age  of  four  and  a half,  told  me 
what  he  had  seen  several  months  before  in  a 
picture  of  skating;  nothing  escaped  him,  not 
even  a little  dog  which  was  seen  on  the  ice ; he 
knew  the  number  of  ladies,  the  number  of  gentle- 
men in  the  sleighs.  Hence  the  sometimes  un- 
bearable babbling  of  the  child,  who  does  not 
spare  you  any  of  the  trifles,  who  notes  all  and 
tells  all,  the  insignificant  and  secondary  as  well 
as  the  important.  And  if  it  is  true,  as  Ribot 
claims,  that  forgetfulness  is  one  of  the  conditions 
of  memory,  whose  exercise  would  be  impossible 
if,  in  order  to  reach  a remote  remembrance,  it 
were  necessary  to  follow  the  entire  series  of  terms 
that  separate  us  from  it,  this  condition  is  lacking 
at  least  in  the  memory  of  the  child,  who  has 
learned  little  as  yet  and  can  forget  nothing. 

At  least  the  child  forgets  nothing  of  what  he 
has  recently  learned’  nor,  above  all,  of  what  has 
affected  him  keenly.  Memory,  like  attention, 
like  imagination,  and  the  different  faculties  or 
forms  of  the  intelligence,  depends  in  part  upon 


232  the  development  of  the  child. 

the  sensibility.  And  this  explains  why  the  recol- 
lections of  childhood  (those  that  date  from  the 
fourth  or  fifth  year)  are  so  remarkably  tenacious, 
and  remain  with  us  all  our  lives.  Doubtless 
they  have  this  advantage  over  later  remem- 
brances— namely,  that  they  came  first.  By  the 
right  of  the  first  occupant,  a remembrance  ac- 
quired in  the  first  years  has  less  difficulty  in  fix- 
ing itself  forever  in  the  mind.  But  the  particular 
emotion  which  moves  the  child  when  his  im- 
pressions are  new  has  much  to  do  with  the  dura- 
tion of  his  first  remembrances.  And  here  we 
have  the  explanation  of  the  charm  which  the 
remembrance  of  the  events  and  sensations  of 
our  first  years  has  for  us  when  we  have  reached 
middle  age,  and  the  shadows  of  the  night  of  ap- 
proaching old  age  are  closing  in  around  us — for 
instance,  a bit  of  song  that  our  mothers  used  to 
hum,  whose  refrain  still  lingers  in  our  ears,  or  a 
bit  of  landscape  of  our  native  country  lighted 
up  by  the  clear  sun  that  dazzled  our  childish 
eyes. 

Nothing  demonstrates  the  solidity,  the  per- 
sistent vitality  of  the  child’s  recollections,  more 
clearly  than  the  study  of  mental  diseases,  of  mor- 
bid amnesia.  It  has  been  established  by  repeated 
observations  that  in  the  abnormal  states  which 
cause  a gradual  destruction  of  memory,  the  rec- 
ollections of  childhood  are  the  last  to  disappear. 
They  constitute  a first  layer,  resisting  and  tena- 
cious, which  the  disease  does  not  break  through 
until  the  very  last.  Luys  says  that  memory,  in 
its  decay,  loses  its  remembrances  in  the  exact 


INTELLECTUAL  EVOLUTION. 


233 


chronological  order  in  which  it  has  accumulated 
them. 

But  in  the  normal  life  of  the  man  healthy  in 
body  and  in  mind,  the  remembrances  of  child- 
hood, if  not  the  only  ones  to  last,  are  nevertheless 
most  prompt  in  reviving  themselves.  As  I ap- 
proach old  age,^^  said  Rousseau,  I feel  that  my 
recollections  of  childhood  are  renewed,  while  the 
others  escape  me.'’^  To  be  sure,  imagination  plays 
a part  in  the  complacent  glance  which  the  old 
man  casts  upon  his  past,  and  with  imagination  a 
certain  egoism  also,  a personal  tenderness  for  the 
age  when  he  was  young  and  strong.  It  is  true 
that  the  remembrances  recalled  by  celebrated 
writers  are  not  all  exact  and  faithful.  They  yield 
in  these  recitals  to  the  desire  to  put  themselves 
forward,  to  pass  for  little  prodigies,  to  attribute  to 
their  childhood  the  ideas  and  feelings  of  a grown 
person.  They  yield  thus,  very  naively,  to  the 
natural  tendency  of  the  imagination  to  embellish 
and  transform  everything  that  is  at  a distance. 

Every  one  has  noticed,^^  says  Doudan,  that  the 
recollections  of  childhood  and  of  youth  take  on, 
little  by  little,  as  life  advances,  the  character  of 
the  ideal.  . . . Our  impressions  at  that  time  were 
extremely  vivid,  and  their  object  often  trifles, 
but  in  the  distant  perspective  in  which  life  leads 
us,  in  going  back  to  the  time  that  has  fled,  we  ex- 
aggerate all  those  objects  according  to  the  im- 
pressions that  we  have  remembered.  We  make 
wonderful  spectacles  of  those  vanished  days,  so 
that  they  may  correspond  to  the  intensity  of  the 
feelings  which  moved  us  then.  In  the  spring- 


234  the  development  op  the  child. 


time  of  life  the  brilliance  of  the  sun  and  of  Na- 
ture excited  us  to  the  point  of  mad  joy,  and  in 
returning  to  those  days  in  thought  we  see  a 
higher  Nature  under  a brighter  sky  than  our 
eyes  have  ever  beheld.'’^  * We  have  all  felt  these 
illusions  of  memory,  which  at  a distance  idealize 
and  metamorphose  everything.  The  people  we 
knew  in  our  childhood  appear  to  us  as  shadows ; 
a sort  of  confused  vapour  envelops  their  outlines. 

It  seems,  however,  that  by  an  effort  of  reflec- 
tion, on  rummaging  in  the  recollections  of  the 
fourth  or  fifth  year,  one  may  find  something  be- 
sides vague  impressions,  and  recall  very  precise 
and  clear  circumstances.  If  the  memory  is 
strongest  in  the  morning,  or  after  meals  (moder- 
ate meals,  to  be  sure),  when  the  physical  forces 
have  been  renewed,  refreshed,  whether  by  sleep 
or  by  alimentation,  it  is  natural  that  in  the 
morning  of  life,  when  the  soul  awakens  for  the 
first  time  in  all  its  youth  and  freshness,  the  fac- 
ulty of  memory  should  be  developed  also  with 
extraordinary  power.  We  do  not  subscribe  to 
the  opinions  of  those  who  say,  with  Egger,  that 
the  child  retains  only  impressions  and  not  pre- 
cise observations.''^  t Experience  proves,  on  the 
contrary,  that  notation,  properly  speaking — that 
is  to  say,  the  exact  perception  of  the  sensible  char- 
acteristics of  things  or  of  their  signs — reaches 
a high  degree  of  development  in  the  child.  At 
the  age  of  four  George  had  remarkable  facility 


* Pensces  et  fragments,  Paris,  1881,  p.  58. 
t Egger,  op,  cit.,  p,  3G. 


I NT  K I . LK(  U A L K VOL  U T ION. 


L>35 


in  counting;  ho  could  count  up  to  a tliousand 
and  oven  beyond  without  the  slightest  hesitation. 
Egger  himself  says  that  Emile  at  five  and  a half 
was  more  interested  in  numbers  than  in  anything 
else,  and  that  he  learned  them  more  quickly. 
We  may  mention,  also,  the  remarkable  facility 
with  which  the  child  learns  the  letters  of  the 
alphabet.  Finally,  the  rapid  acquisition  of  words 
is  undeniable  proof  that  the  child's  memory  is 
qualified  to  receive  more  than  mere  impressions. 

To  tell  the  truth,  the  capital  fault  of  the  child's 
memory  is  that  it  is  literal  and  mechanical.*  It 
is  only  the  exact  reproduction  of  images  formed 
by  the  senses,  the  representation  of  the  sensible 
form  of  realities.  It  is,  above  all,  verbal.  The 
memory  of  words,  which  is  so  important  at  every 
period  of  life,  reigns  as  sovereign  in  the  child. 
To  demand  that  he  should  recall  impressions " 
would  be  granting  him  a depth  of  inner  feeling 
that  he  does  not  possess ; nor  is  he  capable  of 
remembering  abstract  and  general  ideas  which 
he  does  not  understand,  and  of  which  he  retains 
only  the  verbal  expression.  This  explains  the 
impatience  that  he  shows  if  one  changes  a single 
word  in  a story  with  which  he  is  very  familiar, 

* This  passion  for  literal  exactness,  which  makes  a sort  of 
stereotype  plate  of  memory,  exists  only  in  the  beginning.  To- 
ward the  fifth  or  sixth  year,  on  the  contrary,  the  child  endowed 
with  imagination  likes  to  constitute  himself  a partner  with  the 
person  telling  him  stories*  and  joins  in  the  narration  by  making 
corrections  and  additions.  Egger  has  spoken  of  this  (p.  89), 
and  he  sees  in  this  fact  an  explanation  of  the  origin  of  legends, 
each  new  narrator  modifying  the  primitive  text,  and  uncon- 
sciously substituting  fictions  for  realities. 


236  the  development  of  the  child. 

and  which  is  being  told  him,  perhaps,  for  the 
tenth  time.  He  stops  the  narrator  at  the  slight- 
est modification  of  a text  which  is,  as  it  were, 
sacred  to  him;  at  the  slightest  interpolation  he 
cries,  No ! not  that ! and  demands  the  original 
text.  The  story  of  Jonah  was  being  told  Boulot : 

Jonah  was  a good  man Oh,  no!"^  said 

Boulot,  it  always  begins  with  ^ Once  upon  a 
time.^ 

The  child^s  memory  has  all  the  imperfections 
implied  by  weakness  of  judgment  and  of  reason- 
ing, or  at  least  by  the  predominance  of  the  auto- 
matic over  the  reflective  faculties.  It  resembles 
in  more  than  one  respect  the  memory  of  imbe- 
ciles, which  sometimes  survives  the  ruin  of  all 
the  other  faculties  of  the  mind.  The  memory 
of  imbeciles,^^  says  Dr.  Sollier,  is  sometimes 
greatly  developed ; but  on  careful  observation 
one  finds  that  they  always  tell  things  in  the  order 
in  which  they  have  learned  them,  and  that  they 
do  not  understand  them.  The  slightest  inversion, 
the  least  interruption,  stops  them.  It  is  pure 
automatism.  No  matter  how  many  times  you 
make  them  go  over  it,  they  tell  it  in  just  the 
same  way ; for  instance,  if  an  imbecile  has 
learned  the  days  of  the  week  beginning  with 
Thursday,  and  you  ask  him  to  enumerate  them, 
beginning  with  Monday,  he  may  be  utterly  un- 
able to  do  iV^* 

Of  all  the  intellectual  faculties  or  functions, 
memory  depends  most  on  the  organism,  and  that 


* Dr.  P.  Sollier,  op,  cit.^  p.  325. 


INTELLECTUAL  EVOLUTION. 


237 


is  why  it  presents  so  many  differences  and  so 
great  variations  in  different  individuals,  whether 
in  respect  to  its  general  strength  or  its  special 
aptitudes.  Moreover,  it  is  not  in  man  alone  that 
it  presents  striking  inequalities.  Sir  John  Lub- 
bock tells  what  he  has  seen  in  the  case  of  bees : 
Among  the  bees  that  left  the  hive  by  the  little 
postern  gate,  some  learned  in  a few  lessons  to  find 
it  again;  others  had  great  trouble  in  doing  so. 
There  was  one  even  that  I tried  in  vain  to  induce 
to  enter  at  different  times  during  the  ten  days 
that  it  came  to  the  honey;  it  could  never  find 
the  opening.'’^  * 

In  the  same  way,  what  diversity  of  natural 
disposition  between  one  child  and  another,  wheth- 
er in  facility  in  learning  or  in  tenacity  of  mem- 
ory ! So,  too,  what  inequalities  in  the  different 
forms  of  memory  even  in  the  same  child ! Mem- 
ory is  not  an  indivisible  faculty ; it  includes  dis- 
tinct powers  which  correspond  either  to  each  one 
of  the  five  senses  or  to  the  different  operations  of 
the  mind.  There  are  even  more  memories  than 
senses,  for  one  can  remember  forms  with  preci- 
sion, and  still  be  little  sensitive  to  colours. 

But,  although  memory  varies  in  its  forms  and 
in  the  degrees  of  its  power,  it  is  nevertheless  in 
different  proportions  common  to  all  intelligences. 
It  is  really  the  first  condition  of  all  work  of  com- 
prehension, of  all  development  of  the  mind.  Suc- 
cessive perceptions  acquire  value  only  when  mem- 
ory preserves  them,  and  when,  accordingly,  it 


* Cited  by  Romanes  in  his  Animal  Intelligence. 


238  the  development  of  the  child. 

renders  possible  the  comparison  between  them 
and  the  new  perceptions  that  follow  them.  It  is  a 
question  of  determining  whether  the  perception — 
the  primary  and  fundamental  fact — constitutes  as 
yet  an  intelligent  act,  in  the  highest  sense  of  the 
word.  We  are  disposed  to  incline  toward  the 
negative.  Perception,  forced  upon  the  mind  by 
the  external  medium,  although  conscious,  does 
not  show  the  activity  of  the  brain.  It  is  another 
matter  when,  by  means  of  memory,  a comparison 
can  be  made  between  a past  and  a present  per- 
ception. In  that  case,  from  the  joining  of  two 
psychic  facts,  each  one  of  which,  if  alone,  would 
have  no  importance  in  the  evolution  of  the  mind, 
springs  the  first  intellectual  act,  properly  speak- 
ing, the  judgment  by  comparison,  the  first  link 
of  the  chain,  which,  being  continually  increased, 
will  form  the  human  mind. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


THE  DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  IMAGINATION. 

Perception,  memory,  imagination. — Representative  and  active 
imagination. — Characteristics  of  the  image. — Representative 
imagination  not  absolutely  passive. — Difficulty  in  appreciat- 
ing the  first  traces  of  imagination  in  the  little  child. — 
Dreams. — Imagination  in  the  interpretation  of  drawings. — 
Imagination,  when  the  child  begins  to  talk,  or  at  least  to 
understand  the  language  of  others. — Stories. — How  the  child 
becomes  narrator  in  turn. — Inventive  imagination. — Anal- 
ogy between  the  child’s  mental  state  and  the  mythological 
period  of  primitive  peoples. — The  child  animates,  personifies 
inanimate  things. — Different  examples  of  this  tendency. — 
The  child  is  not  completely  deceived  by  his  own  inventions. 
— His  imaginative  inventions  are  often  only  play. — The 
child’s  poetic  instinct  shows  itself  under  the  dramatic  form. 
— The  inventive  imagination  of  the  child  does  not  require 
many  material  instruments,  but  sometimes  does  without 
them  entirely. — The  aesthetical  sense.  It  does  not  exist  in 
the  child. — Why  is  the  child’s  imagination  disposed  to  en- 
large the  proportions  of  things  ? — Causes  of  the  activity  of 
imagination  in  childhood. 

Perception,  memory,  imagination  are  three 
distinct  terms,  three  successive  and  correlative 
stages  of  intellecthal  development.  The  child 
remembers  only  what  he  perceives,  and  it  must 
necessarily  follow  that  the  faculties  of  perception 
have  acquired  a certain  force  before  the  faculties 

239 


240  the  development  of  the  child. 


of  memory  can  be  really  exercised.  Imagination, 
on  its  side,  presupposes  memory ; it  is  from  dis- 
tinct and  precise  remembrances  that  the  images 
burst  forth.  In  imagination  itself,  moreover,  we 
must  notice  two  consecutive  and  closely  con- 
nected steps : First,  the  pure  and  simple  represen- 
tation of  things  perceived  and  recalled ; then  the 
construction,  more  or  less  original,  of  new  images 
which  have  no  exact  correspondence  in  reality. 
And  in  order  that  the  mind  should  accomplish 
this  work  of  combination,  of  invention,  in  a word, 
of  active  imagination,  it  is  evidently  necessary 
that  it  should  be  able  to  dispose  of  a large  num- 
ber of  sensible  representations. 

The  child  sees  snow  the  first  winter  of  his  life. 
He  certainly  does  not  think  of  it  after  it  has  dis- 
appeared. But  when  winter  returns,  and  with  it 
the  snow,  he  recognises  the  white  heaps  which 
meet  his  gaze  for  the  second  time ; memory  ap- 
pears, and  if  he  already  knows  the  sense  of  the 
word  snow,^'’  he  will  remember  every  time  that 
it  is  pronounced  in  his  presence  that  he  has  seen 
snow  in  the  garden,  in  the  street,  in  the  fields. 
And  from  these  repeated  recallings  of  the  same 
remembrance  will  come,  little  by  little,  the  image 
of  snow,  the  cold,  white  mass  that  covers  the 
earth  like  a carpet.  The  child,  on  the  other 
hand,  has  seen  mountains ; he  retains  the  remem- 
brance, the  image  of  them ; and  when,  later,  the 
adventures  of  this  or  that  sailor  at  the  north 
pole  are  told  him,  when  he  hears  of  mountains 
of  snow,  the  distinct  representations,  the  differ- 
ent images  already  formed  in  his  mind  will  bo 


THE  DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  IMAGINATION.  241 

joined  and  combined  to  form  by  a first  effort  of 
inventive  imagination  an  approximately  adequate 
conception  of  those  piles  of  frozen  snow  of  the 
polar  regions  which  he  has  never  seen  and  prob- 
ably never  will  see.  And  if  we  go  a little  further 
still  there  will  come  a moment  when  the  child 
will  perform  the  entire  act  of  creative  imagina- 
tion, when  he  will  not  only  represent  to  himself 
a mountain  of  snow,  a glacier,  but,  in  combin- 
ing with  this  isolated  representation  others  ac- 
quired from  his  own  experience  (the  cold  that 
he  has  felt,  the  falls  he  has  had  in  his  coasting), 
will  picture  to  himself  in  his  day  dreams  the 
suffering  undergone,  the  dangers  run  by  the  sail- 
ors roving  in  the  lonely  polar  regions. 

In  other  words,  if  memory  results  from  the 
renewing  of  perceptions,  from  the  renewing  of 
remembrances  comes,  in  its  turn,  the  image. 
Imagination  is  not  distinguished  from  memory 
simply  by  the  fact  that  the  image  is  more  dis- 
tinct than  the  remembrance,  more  representative 
of  the  sensible  qualities  of  reality — more  pictur- 
esque, in  a word.  It  has  above  all  this  charac- 
teristic— namely,  that  it  constitutes  a purely 
mental  act,  independent  of  objects,  an  ideal  draw- 
ing, an  inner  representation  of  things  seen  or 
felt,  a conception,  finally,  tending  to  reproduce 
itself  by  the  forces  of  the  mind  alone.  In  the 
little  child,  as  we  have  seen,  memory  does  not  act 
except  when  in  the  presence  of  facts  that  have 
been  perceived  before  and  reappear ; the  remem- 
brance is  not,  as  it  will  be  later,  a mental  repro- 
duction which  the  mind  carries  on  even  in  tho 


242  the  development  of  the  citild. 


absence  of  objects.  A certain  time  is  necessary 
in  order  that  the  absolutely  subjective  represen- 
tation may  be  separated,  detached,  so  to  speak, 
from  these  phenomena  of  memory,  which  are  re- 
newed every  time  an  object  or  a person  reappears 
before  the  child,  and  that  it  may  be  established 
in  the  mind  and  become  an  image;  the  image, 
which  is,  as  it  were,  one  of  the  elements  of  that 
inner  museum  which  every  man  of  imagination 
carries  within  him,  which  he  can  survey  even 
when  closing  his  eyes,  since  he  carries  it  in  his 
eyes,^^  in  oculis  fert,  as  the  Latins  said  when  they 
meant  to  express  the  idea  of  thinking  of  a loved 
one. 

Representative  imagination  is  not  then  an  ab- 
solutely passive  phenomenon.  To  liken  images 
to  footprints  made  in  the  shifting  sands,  or  to 
the  characters  stamped  upon  a sheet  of  paper  by 
a printing  press,  is  simply  to  draw  a comparison 
between  analogous  facts — complete  assimilation 
would  be  absolutely  erroneous.  Even  in  the 
phenomena  in  which  it  seems  to  receive  passive- 
ly, as  soft  wax  would  do,  the  images  coming 
from  without,  the  active  soul  already  shows  itself. 
An  engraving  is  one  thing,  an  impression  is  quite 
another  thing,  and  the  image,  in  its  turn,  sums 
up  and  condenses  a large  number  of  impres- 
sions. It  is  wrong,  then,  to  represent  imagina- 
tion and  abstraction  as  two  opposed  rival  powers. 
The  truth  is,  that  in  imagination  there  is  a begin- 
ning of  abstraction ; it  is  not  the  whole  object 
that  passes  into  the  image,  for  the  image  is  but 
an  abridgment,  an  abstraction,  in  a way,  of 


THE  DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  IMAGINATION.  243 


different  successive  perceptions,  since  the  mind 
retains  only  a certain  number  of  qualities  which 
are  common  to  all  these  perceptions.*  There  is 
not  a single  act  of  reproductive  imagination 
which  is  an  exact  reproduction  and  nothing 
more;  we  always  modify  something,  either  by 
omission  or  by  addition,  in  the  images  of  things ; 
and  invention,  personal  construction,  appears 
even  in  the  first  attempts  of  representative  im- 
agination, without  the  intervention  of  the  will 
in  these  different  modifications. 

These  considerations  lead  us  to  conclude  that 
even  if  imagination  is  strong  in  the  child,  as  the 
whole  world  agrees  in  saying,  it  is  not,  even  in 
its  simplest  form,  as  precocious  as  one  would  be 
tempted  to  believe.  If  it  were  possible  to  open 
the  brain  of  a child  five  or  six  months  old,  and 
to  read  there  what  its  consciousness  is  still 
powerless  to  decipher,  we  believe  that  these 
photographs  would  not  be  found  there.  Before 
imagination,  even  exclusively  representative  im- 
agination, can  take  its  flight,  the  inner  forces  of 
the  mind,  or,  to  translate  the  same  idea  into 

* Imagination  is  different  from  memory.  I have  in  my 
mind  the  idea  of  a mountain  which  I perceive  every  day  from 
my  window,  when  I spend  the  summer  in  the  Pyrenees — a pure 
phenomenon  of  memory.  All  the  details  are  stored  up  in  my 
consciousness ; the  tall  green  trees,  the  meadows  lighted  up  by 
the  rising  sun,  the  form  and  outlines  of  the  peaks  ...  To 
imagine  a mountain  is  quite  another  thing;  it  is  to  represent  to 
one’s  self  an  ideal  mountain,  by  a fusing  of  remembrances, 
not  ideal  in  the  sense  of  more  beautiful  than  reality,  but  be- 
cause it  is  an  idea  distinct  from  the  perceptions  which  have 
prepared  it. 

ir 


244  the  development  of  the  child. 


physiological  language,  the  cerebral  centres  must 
have  attained  a degree  of  development  which 
the  child  at  that  age  is  far  from  having  reached. 
Even  if  imagination  is  but  the  copy,  a sort  of  trac- 
ing of  sensible  objects,  still  that  transmutation 
which  creates  a mental  world,  an  ideal  world,  by 
the  side  of  the  real  world,  is  not  the  work  of  a 
day. 

Let  us  not  seek,  therefore,  examples  of  im- 
aginative power  in  the  very  young  child.  As 
long  as  he  does  not  speak,  it  is  very  difficult  to 
penetrate  into  his  consciousness,  still  mute,  to 
seize  upon  the  germs  of  imagination.  The  new- 
born child  has  the  means  of  making  us  see  that 
he  perceives,  that  he  recalls ; but  at  just  what 
point  these  perceptions  and  these  remembrances 
culminate  in  a veritable  work  of  imagination  is 
what  we  can  hardly  divine. 

Perhaps  the  child  will  give  us  a better 
glimpse  of  the  activity  of  the  budding  imagina- 
tion when  he  is  asleep,  when  dreams  appear.  In 
spite  of  the  obscurities  of  the  subject  there  seems 
to  be  little  doubt  that  the  child  dreams  at  a 
very  early  age ; * it  is  impossible  to  prove  it, 
however.  Egger  has  rightly  said  that  since  the 
child  dreams  before  he  has  the  power  to  testify 
to  it  in  words,  by  recounting  his  dreams  to  us  we 
can  never  tell  at  what  moment  the  phenomenon 
is  produced  for  the  first  time.f  In  default  of 
testimony  from  the  child  himself,  we  must  con- 


* In  the  fourth  month,  when  fast  asleep,  Tiedemann’s  son 
made  the  motions  of  sucking, 
f Egger,  op.  cit.,  p.  86. 


THE  DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  IMAGINATION,  245 


tent  ourselves  with  appearances,  with  external 
signs,  which  betray  the  inner  agitations  of  the 
mind  of  the  sleeping  child.  Here  is  an  in- 
stance reported  by  Egger:  ^^From  the  second 
’ year  I have  seen  a child  wake  suddenly  with 
cries,  caused  doubtless  by  some  painful  sight; 
he  had  had  bad  dreams.^^  So  a child  nine 
months  old,  when  fast  asleep  on  his  mother’s 
knee,  after  having  nursed,  began -to  repeat  the 
motions,  the  sudden  starts  which  he  had  per- 
formed a few  moments  before ; he  was  evidently 
dreaming — dreaming  that  he  was  nursing  or  that 
he  was  going  to  nurse.  Later,  the  child  will 
dream  of  his  plays;  he  will  laugh  or  smile  in 
his  sleep.  Or  he  will  groan ; he  will  be  a prey  to 
some  imaginary  terror.  Moreover,  we  may  con- 
clude, a priori,  by  analogy  with  what  takes  place 
in  animals,  that  the  little  child  can  dream,  Lu- 
cretius tells  us  that  dogs  dream : 

So,  too,  the  hound,  amid  his  soft  repose, 

Oft  starts  abrupt,  and  howls  and  snuffs  the  breeze, 

With  ceaseless  nostrils,  as  though  full  at  hand 
He  tracked  the  antlered  trembler.  * 

Tiedemann,  however,  is  of  the  opposite  opin- 
ion. He  says  that  little  children  make  motions 
and  noises  in  their  sleep  as  though  they  were 

* De  Natura  Rerum,  Book  lY.  With  respect  to  animals  mod- 
ern observers  are  all  agreed  that  they  dream.  See  Romanes’s 
Evolution,  etc.,  p.  141.  Not  only  the  dog  but  the  horse  also 
dreams,  as  is  shown  by  his  shivering  and  trembling  in  his  sleep. 
“ The  dreams  in  the  case  of  a racehorse  probably  are  associated 
with  some  imaginary  race,  as  those  of  the  hunting  dog  with 
pursuit  and  imaginary  hunts.” 


246  the  development  op  the  child. 


dreaming,  although  they  probably  do  not  dream ; 
they  move  simply  because  of  the  irritability  of 
the  body.  Nurses  and  mothers  ordinarily  attrib- 
ute these  motions  to  dreams ; but,  according  to 
Egger,  they  do  not  distinguish  what  is  mechan- 
ical from  what  is  the  action  of  the  soul ; . they 
confound  purely  organic  motions  with  psychic 
phenomena,  which  are  habitually  produced  only 
in  the  adult. 

Some  weight  must  be  given  to  the  wise  obser- 
vations of  Tiedemann,  and  there  is  no  necessity 
for  exaggerating  the  matter  by  seeing  proofs  of 
memory  or  of  imagination  in  all  the  motions  of  the 
sleeping  child.  The  confused  sensations  which 
sleep  does  not  put  a stop  to  altogether — for  in- 
stance, the  uneasiness  caused  by  an  uncomfort- 
able position  or  by  pain — may  often  explain  these 
appearances. 

But  let  us  return  to  the  waking  life.  It  would 
be  an  exaggeration  to  hold  that  the  child  shows 
no  signs  of  imagination  until  he  begins  to  speak. 
When  he  cries  for  his  mother  or  his  nurse,  who 
has  just  left  him,  is  it  not  probable  that  already 
he  has  in  a certain  measure  the  power  of  pic- 
turing absent  ones  to  himself  ? When  he  shows 
impatience  to  go  out  as  soon  as  he  sees  his  nurse 
making  preparations  for  a walk,  is  it  not  prob- 
able that  he  is  excited  by  the  vague  image  of 
former  airings  and  of  the  pleasure  he  has  found 
in  them  ? 

It  is  a beginning  of  imagination  when  the 
child  recognises  objects  in  a drawing  or  painting, 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  child  is  capa- 


THE  DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  IMAGINATION.  247 

ble  of  interpreting  and  appreciating  the  images 
shown  him  in  a book.  Mme.  Necker  de  Saussure 
says:  have  seen  a child  eleven  months  old 

recognise  a very  small  dog  in  an  engraving.  All 
children  amuse  themselves  with  pictures  after 
the  age  of  one  year."’"’^*  It  is  to  be  remarked, 
moreover,  that  the  presentation  of  pictures  drawn 
on  paper  or  on  linen  aids  greatly  in  the  develop- 
ment of  children's  imagination.  An  image  traced 
by  the  designer's  pencil  or  brush  is  indeed  a re- 
production of  reality  on  a smaller  scale ; conse- 
quently, it  favours  the  analogous  work  which  the 
mind  is  obliged  to  do  in  passing  from  the  percep- 
tion of  real  objects  to  the  conception  of  the  men- 
tal image. 

But  it  is  when  the  child  begins  to  speak,  when 
he  understands  the  sense  of  words,  that  the  activ- 
ity of  his  imagination  finally  shows  itself  by  un- 
mistakable signs.  It  shows  itself,  for  instance,  in 
his  interest  in  the  stories  told  him.  The  pleasure 
which  the  recital  of  the  simplest  narration  gives 
children  results  from  the  vividness  of  the  repre- 
sentation in  their  minds.  The  pictures  called  forth 
within  them  are  perhaps  more  brilliant,  more 
highly  coloured  than  the  real  objects.  The  recital 
has  the  effect  of  a magic  lantern  upon  them.^^f 
This  is  perhaps  straining  a point.  We  hesitate  to 
believe  that  the  representative  imagination  of  the 

* Mme.  Necker  de  Saussnre,  op.  cit.,  Book  III,  chap.  v.  We 
have  spoken  of  the  difficulty  experienced  by  Cheselden’s  blind 
man,  two  months  after  the  operation,  in  believing  that  pictures 
represented  real  objects. 

t Mme.  Necker  de  Saussure,  op,  cit.,  Book  III,  chap.  v. 


248  the  development  of  the  child. 

child  possesses  as  yet  that  colouring  power,  that 
intensity  of  mental  vision  which  it  acquires  only 
in  the  case  of  the  painter  and  of  the  poet.  An 
important  place  must  be  given  to  the  satisfaction 
of  curiosity,  the  charm  of  the  unknown,  in  the 
fascination  which  stories  have  for  the  child^s  at- 
tention. Since  in  our  mature  years  we  still  find 
such  keen  enjoyment  in  penetrating  ideas  that 
are  revealed  to  our  minds  for  the  first  time,  how 
shall  we  measure  the  degree  of  pleasure  which  an 
amusing  tale,  well  told,  would  afford  the  child 
for  whom  everything  is  new  ? Notice  (and  this 
proves  the  relative  weakness  of  the  imagination, 
or  at  least  shows  its  limited  character)  that  the 
child  likes  above  all  the  stories  in  which  he  fig- 
ures himself,  which  recall  to  him  his  personal 
impressions  and  the  incidents  of  his  own  life. 
Notice,  too,  that  when  a story  which  he  already 
knows  is  told  him  again,  even  for  the  tenth 
time,  he  demands  the  exact  wording  to  which  he 
is  accustomed,  as  though  his  imagination,  still 
frail  and  weak,  had  to  grasp  it  several  times  in 
order,  even  in  the  simplest  tales  quite  within  his 
range,  to  appreciate  the  sense  of  that  which  he 
makes  people  repeat  to  him  with  an  insatiable 
avidity. 

The  representative  imagination  is  not  the  only 
source  of  supply  for  the  intellectual  work  which 
is  accomplished  in  the  child’s  mind  when  he  is, 
as  it  were,  hanging  upon  the  lips  of  a narrator. 
A little  effort  of  constructive  imagination  is  ne- 
cessary for  him  to  understand,  even  in  the  most 
familiar  tales,  the  expressions  that  do  not  corre- 


THE  DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  IMAGINATION.  249 

spond  exactly  with  his  experience : for  instance, 
the  desert  or  the  ocean.  The  epithets  that  accom- 
pany these  words,  the  definitions  which  will  be 
given  him,  for  instance,  The  desert  is  a flat 
country,  bare  and  sandy ; the  ocean  is  a vast  ex- 
tent of  water "" ; all  that,  to  be  understood,  presup- 
poses that  the  child  is  capable  of  combining,  of 
associating  the  different  particular  images  which 
each  one  of  these  terms  calls  up,  so  as  to  evolve 
a more  or  less  perfect  and  approximate  concep- 
tion of  the  desert  or  of  the  ocean  which  he  has 
never  seen. 

The  exercise  of  the  imagination  is,  so  to  speak, 
suggested  by  an  outward  excitation  in  the  case 
of  hearing  a story,  as  later  in  the  child’s  personal 
reading.  But  imagination  may  act  of  its  own  ac- 
cord, may  set  itself  going,  so  to  speak,  at  a very 
early  age.  When  the  child  becomes  narrator,  in 
his  turn,  we  feel  from  the  exactness  of  his  de- 
scriptions and  the  precision  of  the  details  which 
he  accumulates,  that  he  sees  mentally  all  that  he 
describes.  It  is  evident  that  the  child  two  or 
three  years  old  thinks,  above  all,  in  images.  The 
power  of  abstract  reflection  which  allows  the 
adult  to  use  words  as  he  would  algebraic  signs, 
without  representing  to  himself  the  thing  signi- 
fied, is  unknown  to  the  child.  Every  word  that 
he  hears  pronounced  or  pronounces  himself  gives 
rise  to  a whole  series  of  images.  And  when  by 
prolonged  habit  he  has  trained  his  imagination 
in  the  recollection  of  scenes  that  he  has  wit- 
nessed or  that  have  been  described  to  him,  he 
becomes  capable  of  inventing  original  ones  him- 


250  the  development  of  the  child. 

self.  The  child  three  or  four  years  old/^  says 
Sully,  who  has  heard  a great  many  tales  will 
make  new  ones  out  of  them.'’^  The  same  author 
tells  of  a little  girl,  five  years  and  nine  months 
old,  who  found  a stone  with  a hole  through  it ; 
whereupon  she  imagined  a whole  fairy  tale  : the 
stone  was  a wonder  stone ; the  hole  represented 
beautiful  apartments  in  which  fairies  lived.* 

It  is  thus  step  by  step  that  the  imagination 
becomes  inventive,  aided  by  the  imitation  of  the 
inventions  of  others.  Here,  as  in  the  case  of  all 
the  other  faculties,  there  is  not  complete  spon- 
taneity, although  there  is  perhaps  more  here  than 
elsewhere.  The  imaginative  faculties  respond 
better  than  do  the  others  to  the  nature  of  a being 
who  is  still  destitute  of  reason  and  of  experience. 
We  have  sometimes  been  startled  at  the  facility 
with  which  one  can  make  a child  wander  from 
his  subject  if  his  imagination  be  stimulated  and 
fed  ever  so  little,  led  on  from  one  dream  to  an- 
other. But  the  child,  even  when  left  to  himself, 
gives  himself  up  to  incoherent  and  strange  con- 
ceptions. Sully  tells  of  a child,  three  years  old, 
who  continually  wished  that  he  might  live  in  the 

* Compare  Egger,  op,  cit.^  p.  58 : “ At  four  years  Felix 
loves  to  have  little  stories  told  him,  which  he  certainly  does 
not  understand  very  well;  he  follows  them  attentively  and 
asks  to  have  them  repeated.  His  mind  takes  hold  of  certain 
words  or  phrases,  and  that  is  enough  to  attach  his  curiosity  to 
the  whole  with  a sort  of  passion.  He  even  tries  to  imitate  these 
little  narrations.  But  the  recitals  he  gives  us  are  disconnected, 
hardly  intelligible;  his  childish  narrations  are  nothing  more 
than  an  amusing  verbiage  for  his  vanity  which  believes  that  it 
is  making  him  like  grown  people. 


THE  DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  IMAGINATION.  251 

water  as  fishes  do,  or  that  he  might  shine  in  the 
heavens  like  a star. 

Taine  has  rightly  said : The  mental  state  of 

little  children  is  in  many  respects  that  of  primi- 
tive peoples  in  the  mythological  and  poetic  pe- 
riod.^^  * If  we  should  let  the  child  alone,  and  if 
education  did  not  come  in  to  put  reason  into  his 
fancies,  we  should  see  him  creating  a new  and 
complete  mythology.  We  often,  doubtless,  help 
him  out  in  his  superstitions ; we  suggest  his  er- 
rors to  him  when  we  speak  to  him  of  little  Jesus, 
when  we  tell  him  the  story  of  the  black  bogy. 
But  the  perfect  good  faith,  the  candour,  the  touch- 
ing innocence  which  he  displays  in  his  absolute 
adherence  to  these  fables,  is  the  proof  that  he 
has  a natural  disposition  to  live  in  the  marvel- 
lous. There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  child  spon- 
taneously gives  full  scope  to  this  mythological 
tendency  which  is  one  of  the  primitive  instincts 
of  human  nature.  He  invests  inanimate  objects 
with  life  and  feeling ; he  personifies  them ; he 
deifies  them  sometimes,  just  as  he  will  humanize 
animals  and  be  a prey  to  La  Fontaine^s  fictions. 

Let  us  cite  a few  facts  in  this  connection.  A 
little  girl  three  years  old  observed  by  Taine,  to 
whom  it  was  said  that  the  moon  had  gone  to 
bed,  asked,  Where  then  is  the  moon^s  nurse 
Here,  to  be  sure,  the  child’s  imagination  simply 
obeyed  the  suggestion  already  contained  in  the 
figurative  language  that  had  been  used  in  speak- 
ing to  her.  But  other  observations  are  more  con- 


* Taine,  Revue  philosophique,  1876,  Book  I,  p.  14. 


252  the  development  op  the  child. 

vincing.  Tiedemann  relates  that  his  son^  on  look- 
ing for  a rainbow  in  the  clouds  and  not  finding 
it  (he  had  seen  one  a few  days  before),  said : 
^^The  rainbow  is  asleep  now.'’'  Insufficiency  of 
language,  it  will  be  said,  and  pure  metaphor! 
We  believe  that  there  is  something  more — a sort 
of  assimilation.  And  the  same  child,  not  seeing 
the  sun  on  the  horizon,  said : The  sun  has  gone 

to  bed ; to-morrow  he  will  get  up  ; he  will  eat  a 
piece  of  bread  and  butter  ! " 

The  child  enters  into  conversation  with  his 
playthings  of  his  own  accord.  The  doll  is  a real 
living  being  to  him.  In  the  same  way  he  says, 
^^My  carriage  will  not  walk;  it  is  naughty!" 
And  when  one  speaks  to  him  of  a familiar  ani- 
mal or  of  a familiar  object,  he  will  say,  What 
does  the  rabbit  say  ? What  does  the  big  tree 
say  ? " 

If  a child  twelve  years  old,  brought  up  accord- 
ing to  the  laws  of  Nature  and  on  the  pattern  of 
Rousseau's  Emile,  could  be  found,  as  Sentenis  re- 
lates,* on  his  knees  in  the  garden,  adoring  the 
sun,  is  it  not  evident  a fortiori  that  the  very 
young  child  whose  imagination  is  not  yet  con- 
trolled by  the  severities  of  experience  would 
naturally  yield  to  analogous  suggestions,  would 
abandon  himself  to  mythological  conceptions  and 
conceive  of  the  things  of  Nature  as  being  in  his 
image  by  a sort  of  naive  anthropomorphism  ? 

George  Sand  says  in  her  M^moires  that  all 


* See  the  report  of  Villemain,  under  the  head  of  L’Enseigne- 
ment  regulier  de  la  langue  maternelle,  by  P.  Girard. 


THE  DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  IMAGINATION.  253 

her  life  as  a child  was  a life  of  imagination.  She 
cursed  the  day  when  doubt  first  came  to  her  as  to 
the  existence  of  Santa  Claus,  the  mysterious  dis- 
tributor of  playthings.  She  combats  the  au- 
sterity of  Rousseau  and  of  all  who  would  ex- 
tinguish the  flame  of  childish  imagination  by 
blasts  of  positive  explanations.  ^^To  take  the 
marvellous  out  of  the  child's  life/'  she  says,  is 
to  go  against  the  very  laws  of  his  nature."  The 
child  naturally  lives  in  a medium  which  is,  so  to 
speak,  supernatural,  where  everything  within  is 
wonderful,  and  everything  without  must  seem 
wonderful  to  him  at  first  sight. 

Tiedemann  has  cleverly  deduced  the  reasons 
which  explain  the  anthropomorphic  conceptions 
of  the  little  child.  In  the  first  place,"  he  says, 
it  is  a law  of  his  intelligence  that  he  can  not 
picture  to  himself  the  unknown  except  in  terms 
of  the  known."  But  the  child  knows  first  his 
own  sensations,  his  emotions,  the  accidents  of  his 
life ; hence  a natural  disposition  to  imagine  that 
other  beings  and  even  things  live,  feel,  and  act 
in  the  same  conditions  as  himself,  that  the  moon 
has  a nurse,  that  the  sun  breakfasts.  Moreover, 
and  this  is  also  an  important  reason,  the  child  has 
to  believe  that  things  are  animate  to  a certain 
extent  in  order  to  sympathize  with  them.  When 
the  little  child  Mme.  Necker  tells  us  of  saw 
her  cup  broken  and  cried,  The  poor  cup  that  I 
loved  so  well,"  and  then  broke  into  tears,  it  was 
not  a cry  analogous  to  that  of  the  housewife 
when  she  loses  an  object  more  or  less  precious 
to  her ; it  is  partly  the  illusion  of  a.sympathetic 


254  the  development  of  tee  child. 

sensibility  animating  and  personifying  every- 
thing. Savage  peoples  obey  the  same  imagi- 
native feeling  when  they  dream  of  a paradise 
where  there  will  be  room  not  only  for  them- 
selves, but  for  all  the  objects  they  have  used 
during  their  lives — for  their  arrows,  for  their 
boats. 

If  modern  positivism  were  not  hemming  the 
child  in  more  and  more,  the  examples  of  these 
childish  illusions  would  doubtless  be  much  more 
numerous,  since  they  are  not,  as  Mme.  Necker 
believed,  voluntary  illusions,  but  evidence  often 
a naive  and  complete  error.  We  can  catch  pass- 
ing manifestations  of  this  instinct  of  the  mar- 
vellous, from  which  arise  the  superstitious  beliefs 
of  humanity  ; and  on  this  point  the  most  refined 
little  Parisian  is  the  equal  of  the  little  savage, 
which  proves,  among  other  things,  that  Nature 
is  stronger  than  heredity. 

The  preceding  observations,  however,  call  for 
some  reservations.  The  nature  of  the  child  is 
not  less  various  than  that  of  the  man ; and  if,  in 
many  cases,  the  child  is  a complete  dupe  to  the 
fictions  of  his  imagination,  if  he  renews  the  su- 
perstitions of  idolatry  and  fetishism  in  his  fan- 
tastical beliefs,  it  is,  for  the  most  part,  only  a 
semi-illusion.  Like  the  poet,  he  delights  in  his 
fancies  without  believing  them.  The  poet,  who 
lives  in  the  world  of  his  creations,  does  not  be- 
lieve in  the  reality  of  his  heroes,  but  he  speaks 
of  them  as  though  they  were  real ; he  sees  them 
before  him  in  flesh  and  blood ; he  hears  the  ac- 
cents of  thej^r  words  and  the  sound  of  their  voices. 


THE  DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  IMAGINATION.  255 


And  without  being  poets,  we  all  feel  the  begin- 
ning of  an  illusion  analogous  to  this  at  the  the- 
atre ; we  are  not  really  deceived  by  the  events  of 
the  drama  being  played  before  our  eyes,  yet  we 
are  to  a certain  extent ; we  lend  our  interest  to 
the  characters  in  the  play  as  though  they  existed, 
and  yet  we  know  that  they  do  not  exist. 

The  child  of  whom  it  has  been  said  that  he  is 
born  a poet  * often  finds  himself  in  the  same  state 
of  mind.  He  is  himself  the  fashioner  of  his  illu- 
sions ; he  invents  the  falsehoods  that  cha^*m  him ; 
he  plays  with  his  fictions,  and  he  makes  believe 
that  he  is  allowing  himself  to  be  deceived  by 
them,  finding  infinite  pleasure  in  this  game. 

He  knows  that  he  is  dreaming,  assuredly,^^  says 
Droz,  ^^but  he  experiences  a real  happiness  in 
playing  this  little  comedy  with  himself.'’^ 

There  are  abundant  observations  on  this 
point.  From  the  time  he  was  two  years  old 
Marcel  played  Rock-a-bye,  baby^^  with  every 
object  that  came  into  his  hands — with  a pencil 
or  a medal.  When  asked  the  time,  he  would  put 
his  hand  on  his  heart  and  answer,  Two  o^clock,^^ 
drawing  a comparison  for  fun  between  the  tick- 
ing of  a watch  and  the  beating  of  his  heart. 
George  at  the  age  of  four  made  three  balls  of 
lead  play  the  part  of  people;  one  was  the  cook, 
another  the  nurse ; the  largest  one  was  the  mis- 

* “ Observe  the  child,*  ’ says  M.  G.  Droz,  “ and  you  will  dis- 
cover in  him  a wealth  of  imagination  which  delights  in  prod- 
igies, and  which  is  found  at  no  other  age.  Is  there  not  more 
true  poetry  in  the  brains  of  these  little  darlings  than  in  twenty 
epics  ? ” 


256  the  development  op  the  child. 

tress  of  the  house;  and  he  imagined  dialogues 
between  these  three  people.  ‘"'Now”  says  the 
mistress,  will  you  go  and  get  some  water  ? 
So  also  Tiedemann^s  son.  On  the  twenty-ninth 
of  October  (he  was  two  years  old)  he  took  sev- 
eral pieces  of  white  cabbage  and  made  them 
represent  different  people  who  were  pushing 
themselves  forward  and  extolling  their  own 
merits.'^ 

Espinas  has  collected  the  following  observa- 
tions : A child  a few  months  old  on  being  given 

the  bottle  wishes  it  to  be  offered  first  to  a little 
wooden  horse,  roughly  fashioned  with  a knife, 
which  he  is  very  fond  of.  He  knows  perfectly 
that  the  horse  does  not  eat,  and  that  is  precisely 
the  cause  of  the  pleasure  he  derives  from  this 
little  ceremony.  It  is  a play  to  him ; a fiction. 
All  children  show  very  early  this  faculty  of  be- 
ing pleased  with  fictions,  as  is  evidenced  by  the 
endless  jests  of  nurses,  who  hide  themselves  or  the 
children,  in  order  to  find  them  afterward  amid 
triumphant  bursts  of  laughter.  Their  readi- 
ness to  enter  into  games  of  this  sort  is  always 
astonishing.  I have  seen  two  children  just  learn- 
ing to  talk,  who  were  seated  opposite  each  other 
at  table,  amuse  themselves  for  a quarter  of  an 
hour  at  a time  by  showing  each  other  crusts  of 
bread  and  christening  them  with  names  of  ani- 
mals, even  when  there  was  not  the  slightest  re- 
semblance between  the  form  of  the  object  and 
that  of  the  animal  mentioned.  Each  partner  in 
this  game  considered  attentively  the  object  pre- 
sented by  the  other,  and  seemed  to  take  the  great- 


THE  DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  IMAGINATION.  257 

est  pleasure  in  thus  arMtrarily  calling  up  differ- 
ent images/^  * 

Another  example.  Guyau  says : “ To  my  child, 
two  and  a half  years  old,  every  fruit  is  an  apple, 
every  colour  that  attracts  his  eyes  is  red,  because 
red  is  essentially  the  showy  colour.  When  he  is 
in  his  cradle  he  shows  me  the  middle  of  the  bed 
and  then  the  edge,  and  says,  ^This  is  the  road 
and  that  is  the  ditch.^  He  imagines  these  things 
of  his  own  accord,  no  one  ever  having  suggested 
such  a game  to  hird.  The  explanation  is  simple 
enough:  he  is  so  carried  away  by  superficial 
analogies  that  he  soon  fails  to  see  the  differ- 
ences; I am  persuaded  that  when  he  goes  to 
sleep  he  believes  himself  to  be  lying  in  the  bed 
of  a white  road  with  ditches  on  each  side  of 
him.^^  t 

It  is  under  the  dramatic  form  that  the  poetic 
instinct  peculiar  to  the  child^s  imagination  likes 
best  to  show  itself.  Egger  gives  a characteris- 
tic proof  of  this.  child  twenty  months  old 

knows,  recognises,  and  recalls  quite  well  from 
memory  several  persons  whom  he  sees  frequently 
in  the  Luxembourg  Garden — a nurse,  for  in- 
stance, and  the  child  that  she  takes  care  of.  One 
day  he  left  us,  pronouncing  more  or  less  distinctly 
the  three  names,  Luxembourg,  the  nurse,  and  the 
Child.  He  went  into  the  next  room,  pretended  to 
say  ^ How  do  you  do  ? ’ to  these  two  people,  then 
came  back  to  tell  us  with  the  same  simplicity 


* Espinas,  Observations,  etc.,  p.  387. 
t Guyau,  Education  et  heredite,  p.  148. 


258  the  development  of  the  child. 


what  he  had  just  been  *doing.  There  was  evi- 
dently nothing  in  the  room  to  remind  him  of 
Luxembourg^  or  of  the  people  who  frequented  it. 
It  was  what  I shall  call  an  act  of  dramatic  im- 
agination ; it  was  a drama  in  its  elementary 
germ.'’^  * 

The  child  usually  assigns  himself  the  princi- 
pal role  in  these  imaginary  scenes.  He  pictures 
himself  or  pretends  to  picture  himself  as  a grown 
person.  Little  girls  take  the  part  of  their  mam- 
mas ; little  boys  play  soldier/coachman,  and  keep 
up  the  fiction  for  some  time.  Egger  tells  us  that 
Felix  played  coachman  when  he  was  about  four 
years  old.  One  day  while  he  was  engaged  in  this 
game  Emile  came  into  the  house.  In  announcing 
his  brother,  Fdlix  did  not  say,  Emile  has  re- 
turned,^^  but  spoke  of  him  as  ^Hhe  coachman^s 
brother.  f 

The  child  usually  seems  to  need  a little  ex- 
ternal machinery  in  order  to  thus  exercise  his 
inventive  imagination.  He  takes  some  object  as 
a starting  point,  which  the  alchemy  of  imagi- 
nation^^ immediately  transforms  and  metamor- 
phoses. Anything  will  do.  He  rides  horseback 
on  a stick.  A stool  turned  upside  down  is  a boat 
or  a cab ; set  upright,  it  is  a horse  or  a table.  J 


* Egger,  op.  cit.,  p.  12.  f Ibid,  p.  55. 

X “ Playthings  representing  lifelike  animals  are  little  aid  to, 
and  may  even  hinder,  the  play  of  the  child’s  imagination.  For 
two  entire  winters  a child  left  alone  in  a room  every  morning 
amused  himself  in  a marvellous  way  with  chairs.  He  arranged 
them  in  different  ways,  and  they  represented  to  him  either  a train 
of  boats  or  of  wagons,  or  a carriage  and  horses.  You  should  have 


THE  DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  IMAGINATION.  259 


A bandbox  becomes  a house,  a cupboard,  a char- 
iot— in  short,  anything  that  it  pleases  the  child 
to  imagine  it,  according  to  the  fancy  of  the  mo- 
ment.* * 

Sometimes,  however,  the  child  does  without 
any  material  symbol : witness  the  little  girl  men- 
tioned by  Egger,  who  amused  herself  with  an 
absolutely  fanciful  companion.  When  I play 
with  my  little  Jane,^^  she  said,  ^^it  is  all  make 
believe.'"  So,  too,  the  child  who,  according  to 
Mme.  Necker,  amused  himself  by  feeding  imagi- 
nary birds  in  an  imaginary  poultry  yard,  with 
imaginary  grain,  insisted  that  the  door  of  the 
room  in  which  he  said  he  kept  them  should  be 
open,  and  if,  by  chance,  any  one  closed  it  he  im- 
mediately began  to  cry,  saying,  People  are  keep- 
ing my  poor  ducks  and  chickens  from  going  out." 

In  all  these  examples,  as  we  have  said,  the 
child  makes  himself  the  voluntary  accomplice  of 
his  imagination ; he  plays  with  it  more  than  he  is 
played  upon  by  it.  Unfeigned  illusion,  however, 
has  some  part,  too.  The  proof  of  this  is  that  the 
sensibility  is  really  moved.  Real  tears  are  shed 

seen  the  air  of  seriousness  with  which,  from  the  top  of  one  of  his 
chairs,  he  plunged  his  pole  (represented  by  a cane)  into  the  deep 
water,  or  mimicked  the  locomotive,  or  lashed  his  fictitious  horses, 
his  armchair  representing  the  coachman’s  seat,  and  two  lower 
chairs  the  horses.  He  spent  hours  in  this  play  every  morning. 
A real  carriage  drawn  by  a beautiful  pasteboard  horse  would 
surely  have  amused  him  less  than  this  play  with  chairs,  in  which 
his  imagination  bore  all  the  expenses.”  (Espinas,  Zoc.  cit.y 
p.  388.) 

* See  Mme.  Necker  de  Saussure,  op.  c^Y.,  Book  III,  chap,  v. 
Also  Anthoine,  A travers  nos  eeoles,  p.  182  et  seq. 

18 


260  the  development  of  the  child. 

over  the  supposed  misfortunes  of  a doll,  and  the 
child  will  be  grieved  or  angry  if  you  happen  to 
contradict  him  or  to  trouble  him  in  the  arrange- 
ment of  his  favourite  fictions. 

If  by  aesthetic  faculty  is  meant  the  power 
simply  of  combining  images,  of  creating,  to  a 
certain  extent,  we  must  grant  that  the  child  has 
it.  But  if  the  aesthetic  sense  is  the  sense  of  the 
beautiful,  the  taste  for  and  discernment  of  the 
beautiful,  it  is  absurd  even  to  state  the  question. 
No  doubt  the  child  likes  the  colours,  the  sounds, 
which  later  will  be  the  elements  of  the  beauti- 
ful in  colour  and  sound,  as  appealing  to  the 
artist.  But  all  colours  please  the  child,  all 
sounds  delight  him.  The  sense  of  harmony,  of 
time,  of  order,  and  of  progression  is  a delicate 
thing  that  escapes  him.  He  is  indifferent  to  the 
beauties  of  Nature.  Pictures  do  not  interest 
him  except  when  they  represent  real  scenes, 
familiar  objects,  to  him;  dogs,  for  instance, 
animals,  or  perhaps  soldiers  and  battles.  Why 
should  this  surprise  us,  when  we  think  of  the 
conditions  of  development  required  for  the  cul- 
ture of  the  aesthetic  faculties,  the  refined  facul- 
ties, so  rare  even  among  grown  people  ? How 
many  people  remain  children  in  this  respect  all 
their  lives!  When  we  consider  the  discordant 
toilets  of  peasant  women,  and  note  the  indifference 
of  the  peasant  to  the  beautiful  paintings  which 
Nature  is  constantly  renewing  before  his  eyes,  is 
it  hard  to  understand  that  the  child  is  also  in- 
capable of  feelings  which  can  be  only  the  result 
of  a long  intellectual  evolution  ? 


THE  DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  IMAGINATION.  261 


Perez  lias  devoted  a whole  chapter  of  his 
psychology  of  the  first  three  years  of  childhood 
to  this  subject.*  But  he  is  obliged  to  concede 
that  the  musical  education  does  not  begin  be- 
fore the  age  of  five  or  six  years ; that  the  word 
pretty/^  which  is  so  continuously  on  the  baby^s 
lips,  is  a synonym  of  all  that  is  new,  brilliant, 
pleasing;  that  in  the  choice  of  playthings  it  is 
the  size,  the  brightness,  the  novelty,  which  de- 
termines it ; that  the  child  of  three  years,  even, 
goes  crazy  over  the  images  of  Epinal,  while  the 
pictures  of  a master  say  nothing  to  him;  in  a 
word,  that  the  child  has  not  and  can  not  have 
the  sense  of  the  beautiful.  There  is,  at  most, 
but  one  exception  to  be  made  concerning  singing 
and  music,  which  very  early  seems  to  have  a 
certain  attraction.  From  the  age  of  five  months 
Tiedemann^s  son  accompanied  his  mother^s  songs 
with  signs  of  pleasure  by  moving  his  arms  and 
legs.  And  we  might  cite  many  analogous  obser- 
vations. 

There  are  other  points  to  be  cleared  up  in  the 
mysteries  of  childish  imagination.  For  instance, 
it  is  a question  whether  the  child,  in  his  tend- 

* Here  are  some  of  the  interesting  facts  reported  by  Perez : 
A child,  three  years  old,  expressed  thus  his  admiration  of  an 
Italian  picture : “ It  is  very  pretty,  papa ; there  is  a lot  of  gold, 
a lot  of  red,  and  a lot  of  blue  ; and  down  there  is  a papa  and  a 
mamma ; there  is  no  baby.”  So  another  child  on  seeing  a moun- 
tain said,  “ Oh  ! the  pretty  mountain  ! ’ ’ but  he  justified  his 
enthusiasm  by  remarking  that  it  was  much  larger  than  his 
house,  perhaps  four  times  larger.  Perez  has  elsewhere  de- 
voted a whole  book — a little  too  long,  perhaps — to  the  same 
subject ; Art  and  Poetry  in  the  Child,  Paris,  1888, 


262  the  development  of  the  child. 


ency  to  exaggerate,  which,  moreover,  will  al- 
ways be  a characteristic  of  imagination,  is  not 
imposed  upon  by  an  error  of  his  senses.  The  blind 
man  described  by  Cheselden  thought  things  ex- 
traordinarily large  when  he  began  to  see.  Is 
there  not  an  analogous  optical  illusion  in  the 
eyes  of  the  child  ? When  we  return  to  a place 
that  we  have  not  seen  since  we  were  three  or 
four  years  old  everything  seems  shrunken  to  us : 
the  houses  and  the  monuments  seem  to  have 
been  lowered.  Is  it  simply  the  effect  of  our  own 
stature  being  increased,  while  the  city  has  re- 
mained the  same  ? It  is  hard  to  admit  this,  and 
we  incline  to  the  belief  that  things  appear  larger 
to  the  child  than  they  will  seem  later,  because 
he  has  not  yet  travelled  over  great  distances, 
nor  compared  many  altitudes,  just  as  the  hours 
seem  longer  to  him  who  has  lived  but  a little 
while,  as  Paul  Janet  has  ingeniously  shown,  and 
shorter  to  him  who  is  already  far  along  on  the 
road  of  life. 

Beginning  with  exact  perception  and  intu- 
ition of  reality,  imagination  very  soon  comes  to 
forge  for  itself  a little  world  of  fancies,  so  bely- 
ing its  very  origin ; the  more  elements  of  action 
and  the  more  images  it  seizes  in  the  contempla- 
tion of  things,  the  more  disposed  is  it  to  create 
myths.  The  psychological  evolution  is  full  of 
these  contrasts.  The  faculties,  in  their  natural 
development,  bear  fruits  and  flowers  which  the 
character  of  the  trunk  and  of  the  roots  fails  to 
reveal  to  us.  Not  only  do  the  effects  differ  from 
their  sources,  but  they  are  in  direct  opposition 


THE  DIFFERENT  FORMS  OF  IMAGINATION.  2G3 

to  the  primitive  causes  that  cradled  them.  A 
slave  to  the  perception  of  real  objects  in  its  be- 
ginnings, imagination  comes  to  be  the  freest  of 
all  the  faculties  when  it  has  reached  its  height, 
removes  us  furthest  from  the  truth  when  it 
breaks  loose  with  its  greatest  boldness.  Is  it 
not  by  an  analogous  contradiction  that  the  affec- 
tionate sensibility  and  the  love  for  others  re- 
sults, in  a way,  from  the  child^s  egoism,  from 
the  love  of  self,  if  at  least  it  is  true,  as  can 
hardly  be  questioned,  that  the  more  the  child 
loves  his  own  pleasure  the  more  he  is  led  to  love 
those  who  provide  this  pleasure  for  him;  the 
intensity  of  his  feelings  of  friendship  being  in 
proportion  to  his  ardour  in  seeking  selfish  satis- 
faction, and  the  cold  natures,  without  tenderness, 
hard  hearted,  being  precisely  those  which  in 
youth  did  not  passionately  desire  personal  plea- 
sure ? 

We  shall  meet  with  imagination  again  in  the 
child^s  plays,  in  the  little  practical  inventions  in 
which  his  initiative  displays  itself.  But  even 
now  we  may  conclude  that  imagination  is  really 
active  in  the  child,  not  only  the  sensitive  and  in- 
voluntary imagination,  but  intentional  imagina- 
tion also ; and  this,  because  it  finds  itself  in  con- 
ditions most  favourable  to  its  exercise. 

The  materials  at  its  disposal  are  not  numer- 
ous, but  they  lend  themselves  marvelously  to  the 
work  of  imagination.  ^^The  excessive  imagina- 
tion of  the  child,  as  of  primitive  peoples,’^  says 
Guy  an,  depends  in  great  measure  upon  the  lack 
of  distinctness  in  perceptions  which  transform 


264  the  development  op  the  child. 

themselves  at  will  one  into  the  other.  We  see 
what  we  will  in  what  is  as  confused  as  the  form 
of  the  clouds.  The  child  does  not  distinguish 
clearly  either  time,  places,  or  persons.  The  im- 
agination of  children,  then,  has  as  a starting 
point  the  confusion  of  images  produced  by  their 
reciprocal  attraction ; they  mingle  what  has  been 
with  what  is  or  will  be ; they  do  not  live,  as  we 
do,  in  the  real,  in  the  determined,  but  they  dream 
about  everything  they  perceive.'^*  Let  us  add 
that  the  more  limited  the  acquired  experience, 
the  greater  is  the  liberty  of  imagination.  It 
makes  up  for  the  poverty  of  its  resources  by  the 
independence  allowed  its  conduct.  Later  it  will 
shatter  itself  in  its  first  contact  with  the  exact 
knowledge  of  the  laws  of  Nature.  The  faculties 
of  refiection,  the  scientific  faculties,  will  lose  no 
time  in  showing  it  the  impossibility  of  the  fic- 
tions in  which  it  may  have  been  tempted  to  lose 
itself.  Accordingly,  instead  of  increasing,  as  do 
most  of  the  other  faculties,  instead  of  developing 
with  age,  at  least  in  the  ordinary  man,  in  all  who 
are  neither  artists  nor  poets,  imagination,  on  the 
contrary,  will  tend  to  diminish  and  to  decrease. 


* Guyau,  Education  et  heredite,  p.  147. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


CONSCIOUSNESS. — ATTENTION. — ASSOCIATION  OF 
IDEAS. 

I.  Consciousness. — The  gradual  development  of  consciousness 
in  intensity  and  extension, — The  conscious  states  and  the 
consciousness  of  the  self. — Conscious  states  following  an  un- 
conscious act,  a conscious  perception,  an  absolutely  internal 
conscious  state. — Consciousness  is  not  coextensive  with  the 
whole  mental  life.  II.  Attention,  a more  intense  degree  of 
consciousness. — Attention  in  the  child  and  in  the  adult. — 
Attention  called  spontaneous. — Voluntary  or  active  atten- 
tion.— Passive  attention. — The  child’s  attention  is  in  one 
sense  only  a perpetual  distraction. — Causes  of  the  child’s 
involuntary  attention. — Novelty  produces  surprise,  astonish- 
ment, and  consequently  attention. — Is  involuntary  attention 
always  caused  by  affective  states  ? — Curiosity,  the  intellectual 
germ  of  attention. — Origin  of  voluntary  attention. — Volun- 
tary attention  also  presupposes  stimuli,  but  inner  stimuli. — 
The  exercise  of  attention  in  the  child’s  plays. — Effects  of  at- 
tention.— The  lack  of  attention  in  idiots.  III.  Attention  iso- 
lates and  separates  intellectual  elements ; association  of  ideas 
reunites  them. — Mechanical  characteristics  of  the  associa- 
tion of  ideas. — Successive  states  of  consciousness  tend  to 
reappear  in  the  same  order. — Association  of  distinct  im- 
pressions not  contiguous  in  time. — Associations  by  resem- 
blance.— Purely  verbal  associations  by  the  sound  of  words. 

I. 

More  than  once  in  the  course  of  the  preced- 
ing chapters  we  have  had  occasion  to  speak  of 
265 


266  the  development  of  the  child. 


the  child^s  consciousness,  and  to  show  that  the 
essential  fact  of  the  life  of  the  mind,  the  inexpli- 
cable and  indefinable  character  common  to  all  the 
conscious  phenomena,  is  developed  only  step  by 
step.  The  light  of  consciousness,  in  succeeding 
the  almost  complete  obscurity  of  the  first  days, 
passes  through  all  the  degrees  of  dare- obscure, 
then  of  a brightness  more  and  more  intense.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  field  over  which  it  sheds  its 
rays  is  enlarged  more  and  more ; confined  at  first 
to  mere  sensations  and  to  first  impressions  of 
pleasure  and  pain,  it  extends  afterward  to  per- 
ceptions, to  remembrances,  to  emotions,  to  the 
phenomena  of  the  imagination ; and  we  shall  see 
it  now  manifesting  itself  in  the  acts  of  attention, 
of  judgment,  and  of  reasoning;  annexing  to  its 
domain  each  day  a larger  number  of  acts,  of  dis- 
tinct states,  until  the  day  when,  turning  in  upon 
itself,  so  to  speak,  it  will  give  birth  to  the  idea  of 
the  ego,  and  will,  properly  speaking,  establish  the 
personality.  Let  no  one  think  that  the  conscious 
states,  which  exist  very  early  in  the  child,  can 
immediately  and  at  the  first  onset  serve  as  prin- 
ciples of  the  idea  of  the  ego,  of  the  distinction 
between  subject  and  object.  The  child  is  con- 
scious of  a multitude  of  successive  acts  which 
exist  only  at  the  moment  when  they  are  produced, 
long  before  he  becomes  conscious  of  his  personal 
existence,  of  a self  that  lasts  and  survives  the  dis- 
appearance of  such  and  such  a conscious  state. 
He  can  think,  even  reason,  long  before  he  knows 
himself.  Romanes  says  very  truly  that  there  is 
a period  in  the  child’s  life  during  which  judgment 


CONSCIOUSNESS. 


267 


develops  so  far  as  to  enable  the  mind  to  utter  a 
truth,  without  its  being  sufficiently  developed  to 
be  conscious  of  itself,  in  so  far  as  the  mind  is 
the  object  of  its  own  thought,  and  when,  conse- 
quently, it  can  not  yet  assert  a truth  to  itself  as 
a truth.* 

In  the  first  two  years  of  life,  then,  conscious- 
ness is  simply  a succession  of  conscious  states,  and 
we  have  but  to  consider  its  double  progress  in 
intention  and  extension ; until,  from  the  group- 
ing of  these  phenomena,  more  and  more  clearly 
known  and  more  and  more  numerous,  shall  finally 
spring  forth  the  idea  of  the  ego,  the  real  con- 
sciousness. 

Consciousness  seems  to  obey  a regular  law  of 
evolution  in  its  development  in  intensity.  It  is 
at  its  lowest  stage  when  it  shc|ws  itself  by  light- 
ing up,  for  the  first  time,  an  activity  before  un- 
conscious ; when,  for  instance,  the  intelligence 
plays  a part  in  motions,  so  frequent  in  the  child, 
which  were  at  first  only  automatic  impulses,  re- 
flex motions,  or  when  a feeling  of  pleasure  or  of 
pain  accompanies  a phenomenon  which  is  purely 
physical.  It  attains  a higher  degree  of  clearness 
when  it  follows,  not  an  unconscious  phenomenon, 
but  a former  conscious  state  ; for  instance,  when 
the  remembrance  or  the  image  of  a perception 
already  acquired  is  produced  by  its  repetition. 
Finally,  it  rises  still  higher,  or,  to  state  it  better, 
it  is  more  profound  when  it  follows,  not  a percep- 
tion, that  is  to  say,  not  a phenomenon  produced 


* Romanes,  Mental  Evolution  in  Man,  p.  156. 


268  the  development  of  the  child. 

by  an  outward  impression,  but  a conscious  state, 
absolutely  internal ; for  instance,  when  a remem- 
brance calls  forth  another  remembrance,  when 
one  image  begets  another  image.  Then  the  inner 
activity  has  really  begun.  A work  of  ideation 
takes  place,  which,  because  it  is  wholly  internal, 
is  accompanied  by  a more  active  consciousness. 
And  we  are  now  nearing  the  time  when  the  will, 
following  upon  a conscious  idea  or  desire,  deter- 
mining an  intentional  act,  will  call  forth  a still 
more  intense  consciousness,  a consciousness  very 
different  in  its  character  and  in  its  effects,  since 
it  will  no  longer  be  merely  the  consciousness  of  a 
phenomenon,  but  will  become  the  consciousness 
of  an  active  force,  of  the  ego,  and  of  the  person- 
ality. 

In  its  development  in  extension  consciousness 
very  soon  embraces  the  greater  part  of  the  acts 
performed  by  the  child  or  of  the  phenomena  pro- 
duced within  him.  The  unconscious  life  of  the 
sleeping  state  gives  place,  little  by  little,  to  the 
awakened  life,  and  during  his  waking  hours  the 
child  is  almost  constantly  in  a state  of  conscious- 
ness. Sensations,  perceptions,  remembrances, 
fancies,  this  is  the  train  of  conscious  acts  which 
unroll  themselves  in  a sort  of  continuous  march. 
But,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  list  of  the  states 
of  consciousness  is  extended  from  day  to  day, 
consciousness  does  not  coincide  with  all  the  acts 
of  the  child^s  life.  The  unconscious  doubtless 
draws  back,  becomes  less  and  less,  but  it  main- 
tains its  rights,  and  will  never  completely  lose 
them.  The  conscious  life  is  always  framed,  as  it 


CONSCIOUSNESS. 


269 


were,  by  a large  number  of  automatic  and  uncon- 
scious motions,  of  obscure  impressions,  on  which 
no  sensibility  sheds  its  rays.  If  it  is  true  of  the 
adult,  as  Ribot  says,  that  in  any  man  the  sum  of 
the  conscious  states  is  much  less  than  the  sum  of 
the  nervous  actions  (reflex  actions,  from  the  sim- 
plest to  the  most  complex) ; that  the  conscious 
personality  can  not  be  a representation  of  all  that 
goes  on  in  the  nervous  centres ; that  it  is  only  an 
extract,  a reduction ; it  is  still  more  true  of  the 
child,  in  whom  there  still  remain,  so  to  speak, 
many  unconscious  provisional  states,  the  circle 
of  conscious  acts  being  still  very  limited,  and  the 
consciousness.  Anally,  not  having  conquered  all 
the  territory  which  it  is  afterward  called  upon  to 
subdue. 

Moreover,  what  is  this  consciousness  in  itself 
which  becomes  clearer  and  clearer,  more  and 
more  extended  ? Is  it  simply,  as  the  psycholo- 
gists of  the  new  school  would  state  it,  a some- 
thing superadded  to  the  reflex  and  unconscious 
acts,  and,  to  use  a word  that  has  found  great 
favour,  an  einpTienomenon,  a supreme  effect  of 
the  organic  development,  something  like  the  sil- 
very bright  fringe  of  foam  bordering  the  dark 
wave  of  the  ocean  ? Is  it,  on  the  contrary,  the 
progressive  manifestation  of  a force  sui  generis, 
which  at  flrst  buried,  as  it  were,  in  the  organism, 
struggles  against  obstacles,  and  makes  its  way  to 
the  light  little  by  little,  shedding  its  rays  farther 
and  farther  ; the  revelation  of  an  incorporeal 
substance,  which  can  not  produce  its  full  effect 
until  it  has  .found  the  instruments  necessary  to 


270  the  development  op  the  child. 


its  action  in  a completely  developed  nervous  sys- 
tem and  brain  ? This  is  the  question  as  it  stands, 
but  we  do  not  have  to  settle  it  here  in  our  studies 
of  pure  observation,  from  which  problems  of  sub- 
stances and  of  causes  are  necessarily  excluded. 
Doubtless  the  observation  of  the  child  upholds 
those  who  believe,  in  spite  of  the  protestations 
of  the  idealists,*  that  the  way  is  prepared  for  the 
conscious  by  the  unconscious  ; but  it  does  not 
prove  that  the  conscious  is  a consequence  of  the 
unconscious.  The  unconscious  does  assuredly 
precede  consciousness  in  the  evolution  of  time, 
but  nothing  shows  that  it  creates  consciousness. 
And  on  this  point  we  shall  call  upon  the  valid 
testimony  of  a pupil  of  Darwin,  Romanes.  He 
says : From  a philosophical  point  of  view,  no 

one  can  have  more  respect  for  the  problem  of 
consciousness  than  I have,  and  no  one  can  be 
more  convinced  than  I of  the  impossibility  of 
our  obtaining  a solution  of  the  question.  I am 
completely  in  accord  on  this  point  with  the  most 
advanced  idealist ; and  I consider  that  in  the  idea 
of  consciousness  we  possess  not  only  our  ultimate 
knowledge,  but  the  only  mode  of  existence  which 
the  human  mind  is  capable  of  conceiving  of  as 
existence,  and,  consequently,  the  condition  sine 
qua  non  of  the  possibility  of  an  external  world. 


* On  this  subject  see  Fouillee’s  book,  L’kvolutionnisrne  des 
idees-forces,  1890,  p.  39, where  Fouillee  discusses  and  decides  in  the 
affirmative  (which  seems  faulty  to  us)  the  question  as  to  whether 
consciousness  is  coextensive  with  the  mental  life.  The  uncon- 
scious, so  called,  according  to  Fouillee,  is  only  a new  name  for 
material  phenomena,  or  for  matter  in  itself. 


ATTENTION. 


271 


. . . In  trying  to  trace  the  progress  by  which 
consciousness  emerges  from  the  inferior  phases 
of  mental  organization,  I am  as  far  as  one  could 
be  from  the  hope  of  throwing  any  light  on  the 
intrinsic  nature  of  the  phenomenon  whose  prob- 
able beginnings  I am  trying  to  describe.  It  is  as 
true  to-day  as  in  the  days  of  Solomon,  that  just 
as  you  do  not  know  how  it  is  that  the  child^s 
bones  grow  in  the  mother's  womb,  so  you  do  not 
know  what  the  paths  of  the  mind  are."  * 

II. 

One  of  the  great  difficulties  of  psychological 
analysis  is  that  it  is  obliged  to  study  succes- 
sively, thus  isolating  in  distinct  divisions,  the 
faculties  or  mental  states  which  Nature  trains 
and  develops  simultaneously.  In  order  to  un- 
ravel the  tangled  skein  of  the  child's  psychic 
operations  it  is  necessary  to  go  back  to  them 
again  and  again,  to  approach  a complex  reality 
from  all  sides,  and  take  the  measurement  of  the 
nascent  soul,  so  to  speak,  in  every  direction, 
which,  among  other  inconveniences,  necessitates 
repetition.  Thus  we  have  already  encountered 
attention  several  times  in  studying  perception, 
memory,  imagination,  feelings,  and  even  physical 
activity.  But  it  is  necessary  to  consider  again  by 
itself,  in  its  germs  and  in  its  growth,  this  par- 
ticular power  of  concentration,  of  intellectual 
direction,  which  all  the  psychologists  agree  in 


' * Romanes,  Op,  cit,,  p.  194. 


272  the  development  of  the  child. 

recognising  as  one  of  the  essential  elements,  as 
the  indispensable  condition  of  the  development 
of  the  forces  of  the  mind. 

It  may  be  argued  that  attention,  taken  in  it- 
self, is  but  a degree,  a mode,  a form  of  conscious- 
ness, a more  intense  consciousness,  or,  as  the 
English  say,  an  intensification  of  consciousness. 
Indeed,  all  the  mental  operations,  to  whatever 
category  they  belong,  can  be  reduced  to  the  form 
attention.^^  There  is  not  an  intense  emotion,  a 
connected  action,  a clearly  defined  perception,  in 
which  attention  does  not  enter  more  or  less. 

Attention,  thus  understood,  and  considered 
independently  of  the  causes  that  produce  it,  ex- 
ists in  the  child  as  well  as  in  the  man.  At  a 
very  early  age,  indeed,  there  are  moments  of  keen 
consciousness  when  all  the  intelligence  the  child 
possesses  is  concentrated  on  one  point,  when  he 
is  fascinated,  for  instance,  by  a light  or  a bright 
colour.  The  external  signs  of  attention  show 
themselves  then:  the  eye  is  fixed;  the  child  is 
motionless,  plunged  in  a sort  of  stupor  or  of  ec- 
stasy. As  Ribot  says,  The  whole  body  seems  to 
converge  toward  its  object;  all  motion  stops;  all 
the  energy  at  the  individuals  disposal  aims  at  the 
same  point. 

It  is  this  first  form  of  attention  that  Ribot 
calls  spontaneous^^;  we  believe,  on  the  con- 
trary, that  this  appellation  ought  to  be  reserved 
to  designate  voluntary  attention — that  which  re- 
sults from  an  inner  excitation  of  thought.  ISToth- 


* Psychologie  de  Tattention,  p.  8. 


ATTENTION. 


273 


ing  is  less  spontaneous  than  the  attention  of  the 
child,  since  it  is  generally  provoked  by  a strong 
external  impression.  When  Condillac  defined 
attention  as  a dominant  and  exclusive  sensation, 
he  was  wrong  in  only  one  particular — namely,  in 
wishing  to  extend  to  the  voluntary  phenomena 
what  is  true  of  involuntary  phenomena,  and  of 
the,  so  to  speak,  passive  attention  of  the  first 
period.* 

It  is  a question  of  words,  it  will  be  said,  and 
indeed  the  difl&culty  results  from  the  fact  that  in 
the  language  of  psychology,  which  is  so  imper- 
fect, the  same  term  represents  states  of  conscious- 
ness which  differ  greatly  if  not  in  their  phenom- 
enal appearance  at  least  in  their  origins  and  their 
causes.  As  for  us,  and  according  to  the  etymol- 
ogy of  the  word,  which  indicates  both  a tendency 
and  an  act  of  the  mind,  real  attention,  whatever 
Ribot  says  about  it,  may  be  defined  as  the  liberty 
of  the  mind — that  is  to  say,  in  the  child,  in  the 
natural  dispersion  of  his  ideas,  in  the  fickle  vari- 
ableness of  his  imagination,  in  the  midst  of  all 
the  sensations  which  follow  each  other  and  whose 
plaything  he  is,  we  can  find  but  the  phantom  of 
attention. 

The  attention  claimed  for  the  child  is  most 


* Condillac,  who,  without  suspecting  it,  has  written  in  places 
a psychology  of  the  child  instead  of  adult  psychology,  defines 
attention  as  we  have  just  given  it : “ That  operation  by  which 
our  consciousness,  with  reference  to  certain  perceptions,  in- 
creases so  rapidly  that  they  seem  the  only  ones  of  which  we  have 
taken  account.’’  (Essai  sur  I’origine  des  connaissances  humaines, 
part  i,  sec.  ii,  chap,  i.) 


274  the  development  op  tee  child. 


often,  indeed,  only  the  shadow,  the  phantom  of 
voluntary  attention.  Eead  the  chapter,  other- 
wise so  interesting,  which  Perez  has  written  on 
this  subject,*  and  you  will  be  convinced  that  the 
essential  characteristics  of  active  attention  are 
usually  lacking  in  the  intellectual  states  repre- 
sented as  attentive.  In  Perez^s  examples  atten- 
tion is  constantly  confounded  with  an  imperious 
need,  like  that  of  the  nursling  looking  fixedly  at 
his  mothePs  breast ; or  with  a lively  sensation,  as 
in  the  case  of  the  child  a month  old,  who  can 
follow  for  three  or  four  minutes  the  reflection  of 
the  light  on  a picture  placed  near  a window ; or 
with  the  variableness  of  impressions,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  little  girl,  three  months  old,  who  is 
depicted  to  us  as  being  attentive  to  all  that  went 
on  around  her — to  sounds  of  every  sort,  to  the 
noise  of  a step  in  the  room.  In  these  different 
cases  in  which  the  child  showed  proofs  of  atten- 
tion, the  observing  subject,  Perez  admits,  seemed 
to  belong  less  to  himself  than  to  the  object  ob- 
served. Is  not  this  choosing  what  is  character- 
istic of  opposed  states  in  order  to  make  of  it  a 
feature  common  to  all  states  of  attention  ? The 
attentive  mind  is  master  of  itself ; it  directs, 
fixes  itself;  it  changes  its  place  as  it  will.  Far 
from  being  a dominant  sensation  or  a successive 
compliance  of  thought  to  the  manifold  impres- 
sions of  the  senses,  attention  consists  in  ruling 
sensations  in  order  to  follow  voluntarily  one  idea 

* Perez,  op.  cit.  It  is  a certain  abuse  of  words  to  class  as 
“ attentive  ” a state  which  he  himself  declares  to  appear  as  “ re- 
flex,” and  which  is  only  a “ passive  reaction.” 


ATTENTION. 


275 


which  is  preferred  to  all  others.  It  is  not  the  re- 
sult and  the  rebound  of  an  excitation  from  with- 
out ; it  emanates  from  an  effort  within.  As  to 
this  habit  of  prompt  attention,  scattered  capri- 
* ciously — that  is  to  say,  insufficiently  accorded  to 
everything  — it  is  indeed  characteristic  of  the 
child ; but  it  is  a denial  of  real  attention  which 
holds  the  mind  on  a single  object,  while  repress- 
ing every  other  kind  of  sensation,  and  consigning 
to  inaction  all  faculties  that  might  throw  strange 
impressions  in  the  way. 

One  need  but  teach  a child  to  read,  even  a 
child  four  or  five  years  old,  to  understand  how 
little  this  restless  being  knows  of  attention,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  see  how  many  states  pro- 
duced in  him  simulate  attention.  Put  him  in  the 
garden  with  his  primer;  there,  in  the  midst  of 
the  sensations  which,  as  it  were,  whirl  about  him, 
it  will  be  almost  impossible  to  fix  his  mind.  He 
will  interrupt  his  spelling  incessantly  with  all 
sorts  of  exclamations : There  goes  a butterfiy ! 

See  that  bird  fiy ! Place  the  same  child,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  a rather  dark,  rather  empty  room, 
where  the  sense  solicitations  are  few ; let  him 
see  nothing  but  his  spelling  book,  and  you  will 
find  that  he  will  repeat  his  lesson  very  docilely. 
But  even  then  you  have  not  a really  attentive 
mind  to  deal  with,  a mind  making  an  effort  of 
itself  to  follow  a given  direction ; you  will  have 
before  you  only  a passive  being,  whom  you  keep 
by  dint  of  skill  and  much  managing  under  the 
rule  of  a single  sensation,  that  of  the  syllable 
you  are  making  him  spell,  and  who  will  escape 
19 


276  the  HEVELOPxMENT  of  the  child. 


you  on  the  first  occasion  to  become  the  slave  of 
a new  sensation.  A child  listening  to  an  unusual 
noise  or  looking  at  a bright-coloured  object  may 
resemble  an  attentive  man  externally,  because 
of  his  immovableness  and  the  fixedness  of  his 
glance;  but  this  sort  of  enthralment,  in  which 
an  exclusive  impression  holds  him,  has  but  the 
outward  semblance  of  attention ; according  to 
Bossuet’s  expression,  it  is  only  a forced  atten- 
tion.^^ 

We  find  here,  in  new  terms,  the  general  law  of 
which  we  have  cited  so  many  examples — namely, 
that  the  definite  states  of  human  consciousness 
are  preceded  and  prepared  for  by  very  different 
and  sometimes  by  opposed  states.  In  one  sense, 
we  might  say,  without  paradox,  that  the  child's 
attention  is  only  perpetual  distraction.  In  any 
case,  there  is  in  the  first  age  a series  of  at- 
tentive states  rather  than  a real  faculty  of 
attention. 

What,  then,  are  the  causes  that  turn  the  child's 
involuntary  attention  from  one  object  to  another? 
The  first  is  the  novelty  of  impressions,  for  novel- 
ty renders  impressions  more  intense.  As  a gen- 
eral rule,  anything  that  is  presented  to  the  child 
for  the  first  time  will  captivate  him  and  occupy 
him  for  several  moments  at  least.  Astonish- 
ment, the  surprise  which  every  unexpected  ap- 
pearance causes,  are  attentive  states.  But  we  do 
not  have  to  wait  very  long  for  the  child  to  give 
signs  of  attention.  Thirty  days  after  his  birth 
Tiodemann's  son  noticed  the  gestures  of  those  who 
spoke  to  him ; their  words  had  also  as  great  an 


ATTENTION. 


277 


influence,  even  quieting  his  cries.  At  two  months 
and  a half  the  child  observed  by  Taine  heard 
the  voice  of  its  grandmother,  and  turned  its  head 
in  the  direction  from  which  the  sound  came.  To 
the  child,  who  has  everything  to  learn,  every 
perception  is  a surprise,  and  consequently  every 
perception  has  an  effect  upon  his  intelligence. 
But  the  more  unexpected  the  impressions,  the 
less  they  agree  with  the  general  run  of  daily  ex- 
periences, the  more  easily  will  attention  be  ex- 
cited. Romanes  tells  us  that  when  a woollen 
sock  was  put  on  the  hand  of  his  daughter  nine 
weeks  old,  she  looked  at  it  very  attentively,  as 
though  she  saw  that  some  strange  change  had 
unexpectedly  come  over  her  hand. 

Darwin  said : When  attention  is  called  forth 

suddenly  and  forcibly,  it  is  transformed  into  sur- 
prise ; this,  in  turn,  becomes  astonishment,  which 
leads  to  stupefaction  and  to  fright.'’"*  We  might 
question  this  genealogy  of  the  states  of  con- 
sciousness and  hold,  for  instance,  that  surprise 
is  the  starting  point,  that  it  precedes  and  deter- 
mines attention,  instead  of  following  it.f  But, 
not  to  strain  a point,  it  is  certainly  true  that  the 
two  states,  emotion  or  the  affective  states  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  intellectual  act  on  the  other, 
are  coincident  and  coexistent.  And  the  proof 
of  this  is  that  the  one  and  the  other  show  them- 


* Expression  of  Emotions. 

t Compare  Descartes : “ Admiration  is  a sudden  surprise  of 
the  soul  which  inclines  it  to  consider  attentively  objects  that 
seem  rare  and  extraordinary.”  (Traite  des  passions,  part  ii,  arti- 
cle 70.) 


278  the  development  of  the  child. 

selves  by  the  same  expression  of  the  face — a 
slight  elevation  of  the  brows.  * 

The  other  stimuli  of  the  child's  attention  are 
the  different  emotions  that  he  is  capable  of  feel- 
ing : the  agreeable  emotions ; above  all,  those  that 
naturally  captivate  the  senses  because  the  desire 
for  pleasure  is  satisfied;  for  instance,  all  that 
tickles  the  appetite  of  hunger  or  of  thirst ; later, 
all  that  calls  forth  sympathy  and  affection.  But 
the  disagreeable  emotions  too  are,  to  a certain 
extent,  the  starting  point  of  the  attentive  mo- 
tions, although  they  usually  seem  to  result  in 
turning  aside  or  in  repulsing  thought,  and  it 
seems  as  though  attention  and  aversion  could 
not  exist  together.  Examine  a frightened  child, 
however,  and  you  will  convince  yourself  that 
even  in  his  fear  he  tries  to  account  to  himself  for 
the  object  that  startles  him ; he  will  look  at  it 
stealthily  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye.  But  here 
the  affective  state  is  not  the  real  cause  of  atten- 
tion ; and  if  it  does  not  prevent  its  coming  alto- 
gether, it  is  because  there  is  already  a stimulus 
of  another  order  in  the  child,  an  intellectual  ele- 
ment ; I mean  curiosity. 

Indeed,  whatever  truth  there  may  be  in  the 
rule  laid  down  by  Ribot — namely,  that,  strong  or 
weak,  everywhere  and  always,  involuntary  atten- 
Hon  has  affective  states  as  its  causes’’  we  do  not 
believe  that  this  rule  is  as  he  states,  absolute. 


* Note  also  among  the  external  signs  that  betray  attention 
the  open  mouth  (Darwin)  and  the  momentary  suspension  of 
respiration  (Sikorski). 


ATTENTION. 


279 


without  exception/"  Seeing,  hearing,  touching, 
simply  for  the  sake  of  seeing,  hearing,  touching, 
are  not  unknown  even  to  the  child.  And  from 
these  disinterested  perceptions  result,  very  natu- 
rally, the  attentive  states  of  looking,  listening,  and 
feeling.  It  is  true  that  particular  pleasures,  all 
of  which  result  from  the  interest  which  sensible 
objects  inspire  in  the  child,  accompany  these  mo- 
tions of  attention,  and,  if  we  wished  to  so  state  it, 
even  stimulate  them.  But  it  will  be  seen,  at  least, 
that  we  have  something  more  than  a purely  bio- 
logical origin  for  attention,  which  Ribot  claims 
for  it,  when  he  tells  us  that  its  first  forms  have 
been  linked  to  the  most  imperious  conditions  of 
animal  life,  that  it  is  connected  in  the  final  analy- 
sis with  what  is  most  profound  in  the  individual, 
the  instinct  of  preservation.*  That  in  the  first 
weeks  the  child  does  not  interest  himself  in  any- 
thing except  what  touches  him  in  the  material 
needs  of  nutrition,  no  one  will  dispute ; but  very 
soon  by  the  side  of  the  animal  awakes  the  human 
being,  with  his  brain,  with  the  wants  belonging 
to  intelligence.  Ribot  establishes  this  point  him- 
self by  citing  Preyer : Toward  the  end  of  the 

third  month  the  child  explores  the  field  of  vision, 
gradually  allowing  his  eyes  to  rest  on  objects 
less  and  less  interesting.  It  is  the  same  with  the 
other  senses ; the  transition  is  made  little  by  little 
from  that  which  aftects  him  most  to  that  which  af- 
fects him  least.""  f But  what  affects  him  least  is 
precisely  the  ensemble  of  things  that  have  no 


* Ribot,  Psychologie  de  Tattention,  p.  143. 
1 1 hid.,  p.  50. 


280  the  development  of  the  child. 

connection  with  his  physical  needs^  and  which  the 
child  studies  simply  in  order  to  get  acquainted 
with  them.  Ribot,  who  does  not  seem  to  admit 
in  any  way  the  intrinsic  attraction  of  the  intel- 
lectual work,  complacently  cites  the  two  following 
examples,  borrowed  from  Perez*:  ^^One  day  a 
child,  six  years  old,  who  was,  as  a usual  thing,  very 
distrait,  sat  down  of  his  own  accord  at  the  piano 
to  play  an  air  that  his  mother  liked.  The  same 
child,  when  seven  years  old,  seeing  his  brother 
occupied  with  his  studies,  went  and  sat  down  in 
his  father's  study.  ^ What  are  you  doing  ?'  asked 
his  nurse,  who  was  astonished  at  seeing  him 
there.  ^ I am  doing  a page  of  German,'  said  the 
child.  ^It  is  not  very  amusing,  but  I want  to 
give  mamma  a pleasant  surprise.'"  And  Ribot 
concludes  from  these  anecdotes  that  the  piano 
and  the  German  did  not  awaken  attention  spon- 
taneously. Then  there  would  be  no  study  at- 
tractive in  itself,  and  we  should  have  to  admit 
that  the  attention  of  the  savant,  of  the  philoso- 
pher, is  artificial " — that  is  to  say,  it  has  no  direct 
motive  power — that  it  always  results  from  a feel- 
ing, such  as  the  fear  of  punishment,  the  charm  of 
rewards,  ambition,  interest,  in  the  practical  sense 
of  the  word,  and  so  on. 

What  is  this  innate  curiosity,  then,  which, 
Ribot  himself  declares,  is,  as  it  were,  the  appetite 
of  intelligence,  and  which  is  found  in  some  degree 
in  every  one  ? It  is  hard  for  us  to  consider  it  as 
an  affective  state ; the  pleasure  that  mingles  with 


See  L’enfant  de  trois  a sept  ans,  p.  108. 


ATTENTION. 


^281 

the  satisfaction  of  curiosity  is  the  effect  and  con- 
sequence of  it  rather  than  the  origin  and  cause. 
And,  to  keep  within  the  bounds  of  our  subject, 
not  to  call  on  the  example  of  the  attentive  efforts, 
determined  in  the  man  of  study  by  the  sheer  at- 
traction of  science,  do  we  not  find  traces  of  pure 
curiosity  in  the  child  ? Taine  says : The  child 

of  twelve  months  spends  the  livelong  day  in  tast- 
ing, feeling,  turning  over,  letting  fall,  smelling — 
in  short,  in  experimenting  with  everything  that 
falls  in  his  way ; whatever  the  object  may  be,  a 
doll,  a basket,  a rattle,  a toy,  as  soon  as  it  is  suffi- 
ciently understood,  the  child  lets  it  alone;  the 
object  is  no  longer  new;  the  child  has  nothing 
more  to  learn,  and  the  object  interests  him  no 
longer. 

Curiosity  is  the  real  source  of  voluntary  at- 
tention ; for  the  curious  child  is  no  longer  under 
the  rule  of  external  impressions  which  are  forced 
upon  his  sight ; he  seeks  them  himself  ; he  keeps 
them  for  some  time  under  the  notice  of  his  mind, 
so  to  speak.  But  the  attention  called  forth  in  the 
child  by  curiosity  is  only  a shadow  of  the  atten- 
tion which  is  its  own  mistress.  Childish  curiosity 
becomes  tired  very  soon,  and  lasts  only  as  long  as 
the  novelty  of  the  object  arrests  and  holds  it.  To 
speak  exactly,  it  is  spontaneous  attention,  but  it 
is  not  yet  voluntary  attention. 

However  unconscious  may  be  the  first  concen- 
trations of  thought  of  which  the  child  gives  so 
many  proofs,  it  is  there  that  real  attention  begins. 
It  will  develop  more  or  less  rapidly  in  proportion 
to  the  care  that  is  taken  in  helping  the  child  to 


282  the  development  of  the  child. 

form  a habit  of  receiving  these  intense  dominant 
impressions  which  hold  and  captivate  his  mind. 
When  he  has  fixed  his  gaze  a number  of  times  on 
the  bright  outlines,  on  the  bewitching  forms  that 
attract  him,  when  he  has  lent  his  ear  to  the  strong 
voice  that  rules  him,  to  the  harmonious  sounds 
that  charm  him,  he  will  be  led  gently  to  direct 
his  thoughts  of  his  own  accord  toward  these 
habitual  objects  of  his  contemplation.  To  the 
habitual  excitation  from  without  will  come  to 
respond,  little  by  little,  a voluntary  motion  from 
within.  There  is  no  other  secret  for  calling  the 
mind  to  liberty  than  that  of  charming  and  im- 
prisoning it  at  first  in  continued  and  forced  sen- 
sations.* It  is  wonderful  to  see  how  the  inner 
energy  by  a natural  evolution,  by  the  force  of  in- 
telligence, makes  its  way  to  the  light,  how  the 
will  glides  by  degrees  into  the  habit  of  the  work 
imposed  upon  it  and  of  thought  restrained  and 
kept  upon  a single  point.  The  child^s  mind  is 
strengthened  little  by  little  in  this  sort  of  de- 
pendence in  which  a single  impression  holds  it 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  others ; it  loses  the  habit 
of  dispersion,  of  variableness ; it  lends  itself  more 
and  more,  with  ever-increasing  docility,  to  the 
objects  of  study  placed  before  it.  After  having 
allowed  itself  to  be  compelled,  it  comes  to  acqui- 
esce, and  finally  to  take  the  initiative,  to  wish. 
At  first  it  gives  its  attention  to  whatever  will 
take  it,  and  it  ends  by  being  its  own  master  and 
according  attention  only  when  it  pleases.  Even 

* “ In  everything,”  says  M.  Ravaisson,  “ the  necessity  of 
nature  is  the  warp  on  which  liberty  weaves.” 


ATTENTION. 


283 


in  the  attention  of  the  adult  there  will  always 
remain  something  of  the  involuntary  and,  so  to 
speak,  of  the  fatal ; the  irresistible  attraction  of 
a favourite  thought,  of  a chosen  study,  of  a rul- 
ing taste.* 

The  word  voluntary,^^  applied  to  reflective 
attention,  must  not  deceive  us.  There  are,  doubt- 
less, pure  motions  of  attentive  will ; for  instance, 
when  against  winds  and  tides,  in  spite  of  the  agi- 
tation of  our  minds  and  the  excitement  of  our 
imagination,  from  a motive  of  duty  or  of  press- 
ing obligation,  we  wish  to  hold  our  thoughts  on 
an  object  from  which  everything  turns  us  away. 
Schoolboys,  as  well  as  men  of  science,  know  these 
efforts  of  attentive  will,  which,  not  being  seconded 
by  the  other  forces  of  the  soul,  often  exert  them- 
selves to  no  purpose.  It  is  in  this  case  alone 
that  Ribot's  expression  seems  acceptable  when 
he  speaks  of  artificial  attention.  A child’s  bright 
sally,  reported  by  Maillet,  characterizes  wonder- 
fully this  state  of  powerless  tension.  When  I 
pay  attention,”  said  a schoolboy,  I think  of 
nothing.” 

But  fortunately  this  situation  of  an  isolated 
will  reduced  to  itself,  and  consequently  produc- 
ing no  result  because  not  accompanied  and  aided 
by  the  ordinary  stimuli  of  attention,  is  altogether 
exceptional,  we  might  say  hypothetical.  Volun- 
tary attention  does  not  emanate  from  the  will 
alone  any  more  than  does  voluntary  action. 
Like  involuntary  attention,  it  has  need  of  mo- 

* See  the  author’s  Cours  de  pedagogie  theorique  et  pratique, 
Paris,  Delaplane,  part  i,  section  5. 


284  the  development  of  the  child. 

tive  principles.  Only  while  in  one  case  the 
stimuli  of  attention  are  the  excitations  from 
without^  the  action  being  caused  by  the  very 
nature  of  the  object  observed,  by  all  that  it  pre- 
sents of  the  unexpected,  of  the  interesting,  or,  on 
a higher  plane,  of  the  beautiful  and  of  the  admi- 
rable ; in  the  other  case  the  stimuli  are  within — 
we  find  them  in  ourselves.  Will  is  not  an  abso- 
lute power,  an  authority  scorning  help  of  any 
sort.  To  state  it  exactly,  it  reigns  but  does  not 
govern.  What  does  govern  is  the  ideas,  the  feel- 
ings. And  it  should  be  well  understood  that 
when  we  speak  of  voluntary  attention,  even  in 
the  adult,  but  with  greater  reason  in  the  child, 
we  mean  to  say  simply  that  the  mind  has  the 
power  of  directing,  of  concentrating  the  thought 
by  the  aid  of  the  motive  ideas  or  of  the  excitatory 
perceptions. 

Let  us  see  just  what  happens  in  the  child.  It 
is  in  his  plays  that  he  makes  the  first  serious 
exercise  of  his  reflective  attention.  Let  us  not 
expect  to  find  in  him  that  purely  mental  atten- 
tion which  accompanies  a train  of  reasoning  in 
the  adult.  The  child  being  incapable  of  any 
prolonged  intellectual  work  is  attentive  only  to 
the  actions  which  presuppose  motions,  which 
claim  the  participation  of  all  the  senses,  of  his 
eyes,  above  all,  of  his  hands.  Preyer  relates 
that  his  son  raised  the  lid  of  a jar  sixty-nine 
times  without  interruption,  and  without  even 
getting  up.  He  seemed  to  be  trying  to  find  out 
how  the  sound  was  made.  All  children  have 
the  same  tendency  to  repeat  indefinitely  the 


ATTENTION. 


285 


same  action : knocking,  opening  and  shut- 

ting; and  although  we  must  recognise  here  in 
part,  the  effect  of  a sort  of  automatism  which 
calls  for  the  repetition  of  the  same  act  easily 
accomplished,  it  is  impossible  not  to  see  from 
the  preoccupied  air  of  the  child,  from  his  fixed 
glances,  sometimes  from  the  protrusion  of  his 
lips,  that  he  is  really  attentive. 

In  other  words,  it  is  not  to  exclusively  specu- 
lative perceptions,  to  purely  intellectual  acts, 
that  we  must  look  for  the  first  considerable 
manifestations  of  refiective  attention;  it  is  to 
the  physical  actions  which  the  child  performs 
of  his  own  accord,  and  in  which  it  is  no  longer 
possible  to  say  that  he  is  simply  the  slave  of  a 
ruling  sensation.  As  Sikorski  said,  Experience 
proves  that  if  a child  is  left  on  the  floor  alone 
with  his  toys,  he  remains  quiet  for  a long  time, 
absorbed  in  his  play  and  showing  all  the  signs 
of  an  intense  intellectual  work.'’^  Yes,  but  this 
intellectual  work  is  accompanied  by  physical 
motions  ; the  child  turns  his  toys  over  in  a hun- 
dred ways,  and  the  thought  is  active  only  be- 
cause the  muscles  are  so  too.  There  is  a valuable 
point  for  educators ; they  should  allow  the  child 
some  leeway,  so  to  speak,  in  the  first  lessons; 
they  should  come  to  terms  with  the  child's 
need  of  motion  and  not  demand  that  the  im- 
movability of  his  body  should  correspond  to 
the  attention  of  his  mind,  and  that  he  should 
be,  as  it  were,  a thinking  statue.  And,  finally, 
they  should  remember  that  the  child's  ideal, 
as  he  continually  shows  in  his  eyes,  is  the 


286  the  development  op  the  child. 


alliance  of  physical  activity  with  intellectual 
exercise. 

Charm,  interest,  here  is  the  great  source  of 
attention.  But  the  charm  is  not  only  in  things : 
the  child  creates  it  in  part.  The  diversity  of  his 
tastes  prove  this,  also  his  versatility,  his  ca- 
prices. What  pleases  one  displeases  another. 
What  delighted  a child  a few  moments  ago  dis- 
gusts him  now.  It  is  because  interest  is  sub- 
jective rather  than  objective  ; and  the  best  criti- 
cism one  could  make  of  certain  methods  of 
attractive  instruction  is  that  they  pretend  to 
find  in  the  very  nature  of  things,  in  the  facility 
of  methods,  in  the  agreement  of  means,  the 
talisman  to  call  forth  attention,  when  they 
should,  above  all,  try  to  fathom  the  secret  in 
the  very  nature  of  the  child,  in  his  individual 
tastes,  in  an  appropriate  and  cautious  exercise  of 
his  inclinations,  and,  in  certain  cases,  even  in 
what  the  attractive  instruction  pretends  above 
all  to  avoid,  in  effort. 

But,  however  it  be  aroused,  charm  is  never- 
theless the  necessary  condition  of  any  lasting 
attention.  And  the  end  is  attained  if  we  can 
succeed  in  getting  the  child  to  say  when  we  sub- 
mit him  to  an  exercise  of  any  sort — That  amuses 
me ! This  is  what  an  ingenious  observer, 
Binet,  found  in  the  experiments  which  he  per- 
formed on  the  perception  of  numbers  and  of  dis- 
tances : I will  say  again,  at  the  risk  of  repeat- 

ing myself  too  often,  that  the  first  condition  of 
these  experiments  is  to  fix  the  child’s  attention. 
I prefer  to  be  in  his  room  alone  with  him,  so 


ATTENTION, 


287 


that  no  stranger  shall  distract  him.  I seek, 
above  all,  to  interest  him  in  the  experiments, 
and  I guard  against  his  getting  tired.  Sometimes 
the  little  girl  I observed  said,  ^ I am  beginning 
to  get  tired,^  or  she  expressed  the  same  senti- 
ment more  mischievously  by  saying,  ^ I am  afraid 
I am  tiring  you ' ; when  that  occurred  I stopped 
immediately.  But  sometimes  I had  the  good 
fortune  to  hear  the  child  say,  Again!  that 
amuses  me!^^  I was  sure  then  that  attention 
was  awakened,  and  I tried  to  profit  by  the  good 
humour  shown.^^  * 

It  is  not  necessary  to  say  that  when  the  child 
begins  to  study,  to  learn  to  read  and  to  write,  he 
will  accomplish  nothing  if  he  is  not  capable  of 
attention ; but  what  is  more  interesting  is  to 
show  what  part  attention  plays  in  certain  acts  of 
the  child^s  life,  notably  in  walking.  I have 
been  convinced  in  the  case  of  two  little  sisters,^' 
says  the  author  we  have  just  cited,  ‘‘that  the 
psychic  qualities  of  the  child,  especially  the  stage 
of  his  voluntary  attention,  may  have  a great  in- 
fluence on  the  success  of  the  efforts  at  walking. 
The  older  of  the  two  little  girls  walked  alone  at 
twelve  months,  while  the  second  did  not  succeed 
until  the  age  of  fifteen  months  ; still,  the  older 
was  much  more  delicate,  and  what  is  more,  she 
had  not  the  advantage  which  the  second  one  had 
of  being  brought  up  with  another  child  who 
could  walk  and  whose  example  could  stimulate 
and  instruct  her.  I attribute  this  difference  in 

* Revue  philosophique,  1890,  vol.  ii,  p.  76.  Article  on  the 
Perception  des  longueurs  et  des  nombres. 


288  the  development  of  the  child. 


development  to  the  fact,  often  noticed  by  the 
parents  of  the  two  children,  that  the  elder  of  the 
two  little  girls  gave  more  connected,  more  meth- 
odical attention  to  her  first  efforts  at  locomotion. 
When  she  was  standing  holding  on  to  objects,  a 
table  or  a chair,  she  did  not  let  go  of  one  object 
until  she  had  chosen  another  a little  way  off 
which  could  offer  her  a new  support;  and  she 
went  very  slowly  toward  this  new  object,  giving 
great  attention  to  her  legs ; these  motions  were 
performed  with  the  greatest  seriousness  and  in 
perfect  silence.  The  younger  sister,  on  the  con- 
trary was  a noisy,  laughing  child ; as  soon  as  one 
had  placed  her  on  her  feet  and  she  had  remained 
motionless  for  an  instant,  she  was  seized  by 
an  uncontrollable  desire  for  progression,  which 
seemed  to  push  her  forward ; it  was  evident  that 
she  had  made  no  calculation  as  to  what  object 
could  act  as  her  support,  for  she  advanced  with- 
out the  slightest  hesitation  to  the  middle  of  an 
empty  part  of  the  room ; she  cried  and  gesticu- 
lated, and  was  very  amusing  to  see ; but  she  went 
on  tottering  like  an  intoxicated  man,  and  could 
not  go  four  or  five  steps  without  falling — thus 
her  walking  was  retarded — she  could  not  walk 
alone  with  safety  until  she  was  fifteen  months 
old.^^  * 

It  is  not  only  in  learning  to  walk,  but  earlier 
than  that,  in  grasping  objects,  perhaps  even  in 
the  action  of  sucking,  that  the  first  effects  of  at- 
tention may  be  seen ; and  it  is  not  a paradox  to 

* Billet,  Mouvements  des  jeunes  enfants,  Revue  phil.,  March, 
1890. 


ATTENTION. 


289 


say  that  a child  who  will  be  studious  later  reveals 
it  in  the  way  he  takes  the  bottle,  the  way  he 
grasps  and  holds  it. 

Nothing  throws  more  light  on  the  develop- 
ment of  normal  attention  than  the  study  of  what 
goes  on  in  the  obscure,  veiled  consciousness  of 
idiots  and  imbeciles.  The  most  recent  researches 
confirm  this  long-established  truth — namely,  that 
the  intellectual  weakness  in  idiocy  and  imbecility 
is  the  direct  consequence  of  the  powerlessness  of 
attention.*  And  it  is  interesting  to  show  that 
the  cause  of  this  incurable  infirmity  corresponds 
exactly  to  the  absence  of  the  intellectual  or  af- 
fective principles  which,  in  the  intelligent  and 
impressionable  child,  call  forth  perception  or  the 
action  of  attention.  In  the  idiot,^^  says  Dr.  Sol- 
lier,  ^Hhe  affective  state  is  lacking  either  alto- 
gether or  in  part.  The  only  need  it  feels,  and 
even  then  vaguely,  is  that  of  hunger.  The  sight 
of  food  alone  can  sometimes  call  him  out  of  his 
indifference.  The  sensations  of  an  idiot  are  very 
vague.  He  does  not  perceive  them  clearly;  he 
does  not  know  how  to  compare  them.  He  does 
not  grasp  the  simplest  resemblance  any  better  the 
hundredth  time  than  the  first.'’^  f It  is  the  same 
with  insane  people.  Luys  calls  attention  to  the 
fact  that  maniacs,  people  possessed  by  hallucina- 
tions, have  no  force,  or  almost  no  force  of  atten- 
tion. The  sensations,  so  to  speak,  slip  over  their 
minds;  or,  on  the  other  hand,  when  they  have 

* Esquirol  attributed  the  intellectual  incapacity  of  idiots  to 
the  lack  of  attention. 

f Dr.  Sollier,  op,  cit,,  chaps,  ii  and  iv. 


290  the  development  op  the  child. 


fixed  ideas  they  are  slaves  to  them — they  are,  as 
it  were,  possessed  by  them. 

There  is  nothing  like  this  in  the  normal  child. 
Intelligence  shows  itself  there  whether  by  the 
intense  concentration  of  which  it  is  capable  at 
a given  moment,  or  by  the  facility  of  its  evolu- 
tions. And  it  is  this  last  characteristic,  more- 
over, to  which  the  weakness  of  childish  attention 
is  owing ; the  attention  is  of  short  duration,  soon 
wearied,  exhausts  a thousand  subjects  in  an  hour, 
and  can  be  kept  alive  only  by  variety  and  inces- 
sant changing.  The  child's  soul  is  like  an  open 
house  which  any  one  who  will  may  enter.  His 
attention  has  not  yet  learned  to  defend  itself,  and 
it  gives  all  impressions  the  right  to  enter.* 

III. 

However  imperfect  the  child's  attention  may 
be,  and  although  it  does  not  present  itself  in  gen- 
eral except  as  a subordination  of  the  mind  to  the 
successive  impressions  which  contend  for  the 
thought,  nevertheless  it  produces  its  effects  from 
the  point  of  view  of  intellectual  development. 
Even  if  the  child's  attention  is  not  voluntary, 
still  it  brings  about  results  which  do  not  differ 
sensibly  from  those  of  reflective  attention.  It 


* We  must  recognise  the  fact,  moreover,  that  it  is  faults  of 
education  which  often  aid  in  developing  this  lack.  “ The  habit  of 
giving  children  a great  number  of  toys,  and  so  of  crowding  their 
rooms,  is  extremely  injurious.  An  immoderate  richness  in  dif- 
ferent impressions  creates  conditions  of  distraction.  (Sikorski, 
Rev.  phil.,  vol.  xix,  p.^47.) 


ASSOCIATION  OF  IDEAS. 


291 


isolates  the  phenomena  perceived ; it  analyzes 
their  different  qualities;  it  renders  possible  the 
work  of  preliminary  dissociation,  which  sepa- 
rates, which  frees  the  elements  contained  in  com- 
plex perceptions,  and  which  is  necessary  in  order 
that  by  new  associations  the  beginning  thought 
may  do  its  work.  * 

But  the  law  of  association  does  not  apply  only 
when  it  is  a question  of  imagining,  of  reasoning — 
that  is  to  say,  of  associating  in  the  combinations 
that  appear  for  the  first  time  the  detached  ele- 
ments of  perception.  It  governs  memory  also ; 
it  tends  to  make  the  perceptions  which  succeeded 
each  other  reappear  in  a certain  order.  And  un- 
der this  form  it  is,  in  a way,  the  automatic  side 
of  the  mind,  a sort  of  instinctive  attraction  which 
calls  the  ideas  one  after  another;  while  atten- 
tion, even  in  the  rudimentary  forms,  prepares  the 
way  for  the  reflective  activity,  for  reason.  In 
other  words,  before  the  analytical,  logical  connec- 
tion which  the  judgment  or  even  imagination 
will  establish  between  ideas,  there  is  a mechanical 
association  which  contents  itself  with  connecting 
ideas  that  have  already  been  connected  in  expe- 
rience ; and  it  is  this  association,  naturally  very 
strong  at  the  age  when  the  faculties  of  reflection 
are  still  dormant,  that  explains  either  the  recall- 
ing of  ideas  remembered,  or,  indeed,  the  greater 
part  of  the  judgment  and  reasoning  of  childhood. 

Indeed,  it  is  not  exaggerating  the  action  of  the 
association  of  ideas  to  attribute  to  it  a preponder- 

On  dissociation,  as  a necessary  condition  to  association,  see 
Rabier  Psychologie,  p.  215  et  seq,,  also  Maillet,  op,  cit, 

20 


292  the  development  of  the  child. 


ant  part  in  the  first  manifestations  of  childish, 
intelligence.  Before  the  child  can  break  the 
chain  of  sensations  which  obtrude  themselves 
upon  him  simultaneously  or  successively,  he 
obeys  readily  the  natural  concatenation  of  things. 
It  is  not  he  himself  as  yet  that  puts  order  into 
his  little  ideas ; the  order  they  follow  is  precisely 
the  order  of  nature.  He  wants  to  be  fed  as  soon 
as  he  sees  his  nurse ; he  wants  to  go  out  as  soon 
as  he  sees  the  hat  that  he  wears  when  out  for  his 
walk.  In  a general  way,  every  state  of  conscious- 
ness that  has  been  experienced  calls  up  immedi- 
ately, when  renewed,  by  a sort  of  distinctive  affin- 
ity, the  state  of  consciousness  that  preceded  or 
followed  it. 

Romanes,  who  has  studied  animals  too  much 
not  to  be  beguiled  also  into  the  observation  of 
children,  states  that  it  is  at  the  age  of  seven 
weeks  he  finds  the  first  proof  of  the  existence  of 
memory  in  the  association  of  ideas.  That  is  the 
age,  he  says,  when  children  brought  up  on  a bot- 
tle recognise  the  bottle  for  the  first  time,  an  object 
which  children  always  seem  to  recognise  before  all 
others ; and  he  calls  to  mind  the  fact  that  Locke 
cited,  the  act  of  recognising  the  nursing  bottle  as 
contemporary  with  that  of  recognising  the  rod. 
Romanes  adds  that  in  the  case  of  his  own  child 
he  found  that  the  faculty  of  associating  ideas 
grew  stronger  during  the  ninth  week;  as  soon  as 
her  bib  was  put  on — an  action  that  always  pre- 
ceded that  of  giving  her  the  bottle — she  stopped 
crying  for  her  bottle.* 


* Mental  Evolution  in  Animals. 


ASSOCIATION  OF  IDEAS. 


293 


But  the  law  of  the  association  of  ideas  is  not 
simply  an  intellectual  habit  reproducing  un- 
changingly in  a faithful  memory  the  simultane- 
ous or  successive  impressions  that  are  presented 
to  the  mind.  It  tends  to  make  innovations  also 
in  bringing  together  separate  impressions  which, 
however,  bear  some  relation  to  each  other.  Perez 
cites  the  following : A little  girl,  three  months 

and  a half  old,  was  put  for  a moment  into  the 
arms  of  her  uncle,  who  had  a beautiful  rose  in 
his  buttonhole  ; he  was  surprised  to  see  the  child 
extend  her  arms,  press  his  coat  with  both  hands, 
as  when  she  nursed,  and  then  put  her  lips  against 
his  shirt,  while  making  all  the  motions  of  suck- 
ing. The  nurse  declared  that  several  days  be- 
fore, when  she  was  out  with  the  child,  she  bought 
a bunch  of  violets  and  put  them  in  her  dress; 
there  was,  then,  an  olfactory  sensation  associated 
with  the  idea  and  the  motions  of  nursing.^^  We 
are  not  so  sure  that  the  odour  of  the  rose  or  that 
of  the  violet  was,  as  Perez  believes,  the  princi- 
ple of  the  child^s  illusion;  we  would  incline  to 
the  belief,  rather,  that  the  child,  feeling  herself 
to  be  in  the  arms  of  her  uncle,  as  she  was  often 
in  those  of  her  nurse,  had  the  idea  that  an  analo- 
gous operation  ought  to  correspond  to  the  analo- 
gous situation.  But  however  we  interpret  it, 
this  little  instance  shows  the  power  of  the  law  of 
association,  which  joins  the  idea  of  nursing  not 
only  with  the  reappearance  of  the  nurse,  as  in  or- 
dinary experience,  but  with  a fact  simply  analo- 
gous to  it,  that  of  being  carried  in  arms  and  of 
being  near  a human  breast. 


294  the  development  of  the  child. 

others  have  succeeded  in  showing  that  the 
associations  founded  on  resemblance — that  is  to 
say,  on  an  apparently  objective  principle — are, 
however,  in  themselves,  as  are  all  the  others, 
only  subjective  associations  which  result  from 
the  coexistence  or  from  the  succession  of  two 
states  of  consciousness.*  We  have  the  right, 
nevertheless,  if  we  judge  only  from  appearances, 
to  consider  the  association  by  resemblance  and 
by  analogy  as  a distinct  category ; and  it  is  to 
this  category  that  most  of  the  child^s  associations 
of  ideas  belong.  The  association  of  ideas,  like  all 
forms  or  laws  of  the  mind,  has  its  own  physiog- 
nomy in  the  first  years  of  life.  And  it  is  un- 
doubtedly the  particular  frequency  of  associa- 
tions that  have  no  other  raison  d’etre  than  a 
likeness  more  or  less  real  which  is  the  peculiar 
characteristic  of  the  child^s  intellectual  activity,  f 
Any  analogy,  however  vague  it  may  be,  almost  a 
nothing,  will  suffice  to  turn  him  from  one  idea  to 
another.  Consequently  we  are  often  unable  to 
understand  a child^s  thought.  We  are  tempted 
to  believe  that  it  is  mere  wandering,  an  absolute 
incoherence,  when  he  really  has  his  secret  reasons 
for  jumping  from  one  thing  to  another.  I have 
seen  a baby  two  years  old,  when  looking  at  a 
book  of  natural  history,  recognise  and  call  by 
name  quite  a number  of  animals ; when  he  came 
to  a very  brilliant  parrot  he  invariably  called  it 
mamma."^^  After  hearing  this  several  times, 

* See  Rabier,  op,  cit.,  p.  191  et  seq. 

f “ In  idiots  it  is  manifestly  the  appreciation  of  resemblances 
that  predominates.’^  (Dr.  Sollier.) 


ASSOCIATION  OF  IDEAS. 


295 


one  could  not  but  recognise  that  in  the  employ- 
ment of  this  strange  denomination  the  child  al- 
lowed himself  to  be  guided  by  an  altogether 
external  association  of  ideas  between  the  parrot 
with  his  bright  feathers  and  the  brighter^  more 
striking  costumes,  the  hats  covered  with  feathers 
worn  by  his  mother  and  women  in  general. 

It  is  a superficial  appreciation  of  the  resem- 
blances of  objects  that  determines  the  generaliza- 
tions of  children,  sometimes  so  strange  and  so 
haphazard.  Where  we  see  only  differences  they 
perceive  likenesses  ; they  establish  relations  that 
disconcert  us.*  The  thought  of  the  child,  like 
that  of  the  poet,  is  light  and  winged ; it  crosses 
invisible  and  fragile  bridges,  which  refiection 
would  break  should  she  bear  her  weight  upon 
them,  but  over  which  the  child^s  imagination 
gently  glides  as  the  spider  on  the  fine  thread  of 
his  web. 

Purely  verbal  associations,  those  that  result 
from  the  resemblance  of  sounds,  are  found  fre- 
quently in  the  child.  It  is  very  natural  that  the 
consonance  of  words  should  exercise  a greater 
influence  on  an  intelligence  that  is  as  yet  limited 
than  on  the  reflective  mind  of  the  adult.  Not 
that  these  associations  do  not  present  themselves 
to  the  mature  man  also.  How  often  in  our  medi- 
tations or  our  reveries  are  we  victims  to  these 
external  analogies  of  words ! But  we  repulse 
them,  while  the  child  obeys  them.  One  day,  when 
Marcel  was  two  years  and  a half  old,  he  was  at 
table ; the  dessert  was  brought  on,  and  he  was 


See  chapter  xi : How  the  child  learns  to  talk. 


296  THE  DEVELOPMENT. OF  THE  CHILD. 

asked  if  he  would  have  some  cheese  {fromage). 
He  did  not  wish  any,  and  asked  immediately  for 
mages,  mages,  I suspected  that  he  wanted  pic- 
tures (images),  and  as  soon  as  they  were  shown 
him  he  became  quiet.  The  child's  inexperience 
in  respect  to  language  makes  these  superficial 
connections  easier  to  him.  Murdering  words,  as 
he  does  continually,  distorting  them  at  will,  the . 
resemblance  of  a single  syllable  is  sometimes 
enough  to  start  his  imagination  off  on  a new 
track.  It  is  association,  too,  that  explains  the 
awkwardness  of  a child's  expression — and  the 
same  confusion  may  be  produced  at  any  age — 
the  barbarisms  which  he  scatters  so  profusely  in 
his  vocabulary  when  he  gives  one  word  the  ter- 
mination of  another  that  is  more  familiar  to 
him. 

The  other  classical  principles  of  the  associa- 
tion of  ideas,  contiguity  in  space,  relation  of 
cause  and  effect,  of  means  to  the  end,  determine 
many  of  the  child's  judgments  or  reasonings. 
Examples  of  this  will  be  found  further  on.* 
There  is  no  need  to  exaggerate  the  case,  however, 
and  to  see  the  unalloyed  effect  of  an  involuntary 
mechanism,  a simple  automatic  juxtaposition  of 
ideas  or  states  of  consciousness  in  acts  in  which 
the  force  of  judgment  or  of  reasoning  is  already 
showing  itself.  The  psychologists  of  to-day  show 
a marked  tendency  to  make  all  the  intellectual 
phenomena  dependent  upon  the  association  of 
ideas.  Because  a word  calls  up  the  idea  which 
it  expresses,  or,  inversely,  because  the  object  pre- 


* See  chap.  x. 


ASSOCIATION  OF  IDEAS. 


297 


sented  calls  forth  the  corresponding  term,  is  it  ne- 
cessary to  call  in  the  law  of  association  ? Is  it 
not  more  exact  to  say  that  there  is  an  act  of  in- 
telligent interpretation  of  the  sign,  or,  in  the  in- 
verse case,  an  act  of  remembrance  ? ''A  child 
ten  months  old  sees  her  grandfather  every  day, 
and  his  portrait,  small,  but  a good  likeness,  has 
been  shown  her  several  times.  When  she  is  asked 
^ Where  is  grandpa  ? ^ she  turns  toward  the  por- 
trait and  smiles  at  it.'"  Perez,  who  borrows  this 
anecdote  from  Taine,  gives  it  as  an  example 
of  association.*  According  to  this,  everything 
being  associated  and  connected  in  the  mind,  there 
would  not  be  a single  judgment,  a single  act  of 
reasoning,  that  could  not  be  explained  in  the 
same  way.  We  can  not  admit  Sully's  opinion 
either  when  he  offers  as  examples  of  association 
the  judgments  by  which  the  child  aflS.rms  that 
the  sun  shines,  that  the  rain  wets,  that  hard 
bodies  wound,  f These  are  but  immediate  per- 
ceptions which  associate  two  ideas,  as  do  all  acts 
of  judgment,  the  idea  of  the  sun  and  of  the  bright 
light,  etc.,  but  which  associate  them  spontane- 
eously.  Philosophers  as  well  as  children  can  be 
the  dupes  of  a superficial  relation  between  things 
and  can  be  led  away  by  imprudent  generaliza- 
tions. Every  intellectual  act,  even  the  most  ele- 
mentary, even  that  which  consists  simply  in  af- 
firming the  existence  of  an  object — and  the  child 
can  do  this  even  before  he  can  speak  by  showing 
that  he  recognises  an  object — presupposes  the 
connection  of  two  intellectual  elements.  And  in 


* Perez,  op.  ciL,  p.  162. 


f J.  Sully,  op,  ciLj  p.  169. 


298  the  development  op  the  child. 


the  same  way,  the  most  profound  act  of  reason- 
ing, as  in  the  case  of  the  calculator  with  his 
proofs,  the  observer  with  his  discoveries,  rests 
on  the  association  of  ideas.  But  this  is  no  reason 
for  forgetting  and  ignoring  the  differences  that 
distinguish  these  phenomena  from  the  associa- 
tion of  ideas,  pure  and  simple,  nor  for  confound- 
ing the  operations  in  which  appears  either  the 
natural  force  of  intelligence  in  a perception  imme- 
diately comprehended,  or  the  effort  of  thought 
in  a chain  of  reasoning,  with  the  phenomena  of 
purely  mechanical  association,  with  what  may  be 
called,  in  a word,  intellectual  automatism. 


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